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GALLANT FIGHT 


MARION /HARLAND, 

Author of “Alone,” etc. 






5 '^ 


OfCONQc 

right *''% . 

'■ )V 1 18S8-. ' ' 

<.U9?L^ '' 

.‘^^'ASHINGI 


■NEW YORK: 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. 


Publishers. 


Copyright, 1888, by 
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, 


CONTENTS. 


PACK. 

Chapter I i 

Chapter II 28 

Chapter III 48 

Chapter IV «... 66 

Chapter V 84 

Chapter VI 100 

Chapter VII 119 

Chapter VIII 141 

Chapter IX 167 

Chapter X 194 

Chapter XI 220 

Chapter XII 243 

Chapter XIII 265 

Chapter XIV 289 

Chapter XV. 316 

Chapter XVI 340 

Chapter XVII 358 

Chapter XVIII 386 

Chapter XIX 405 



A GALLANT FIGHT 


CHAPTER I, 

T EfE ** Phelps Place,” as everybody in and about 
Freehold called it, occupied the highest ground in 
the town, A square brick house was built, before the 
village expected to be a city, on a round hill rolling 
gently down to broad river-meadows in front, and 
more gradually still at back and sides into the level 
acres and outlying woods of the Phelps farm. 

Fifty years afterward a descendant of the first owner 
heaved the straight roof above the facade into a pedi- 
ment that imparted a disdainful perk to an edifice al- 
ready venerable, according to New England reckon- 
ing of age. He further increased the importance of 
the family residence by spreading a portico with Cor- 
inthian columns under the eaves on the riverward front. 
In the pediment was a circular window enclosing a 
smaller central circle. Leaden lines, radiating out- 
ward from the inner round, gave the effect of a Cy- 
clops* eye with a flat pupil and ridged iris, peering 
over the portico-roof at newer houses, most of them 
wooden, and blazing with white paint, edging and sid- 
ling nearer to the old homestead with each prosper- 
ous year to shop-keeper and manufacturer. 


2 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


The son of the pediment-and-colorinade-builder 
grew richer than all his fathers, and chiefly from the 
rise in the value of real estate. The freehold farm, 
of which the town was the namesake, was cut up into 
building-lots and criss-crossed by streets, until there 
remained but the gardens and lawn. The rich red of 
the bricks was coated with gray paint, the tall colon- 
nade remaining white. A line of kitchens and other 
offices in the rear suggested the likeness of a brood- 
ing Domenica hen, with white face and pert comb. 

At least, so declared Mrs. Richard Phelps, wife of 
the fifth master of the manor, as she sat on the porti- 
co one June afternoon. 

“ The figure came to me at my first visit here, fif- 
teen years ago,” she added. “ Freehold was the ter- 
minus of our wedding trip. The father, and two 
brothers, older than my husband, were living then, 
and a maiden aunt kept house for them. I little 
dreamed that this would ever become my home. 
Death and change have been fearfully busy in the 
last ten years.” 

“ Were you born in Baltimore ? ” 

“ Yes, and lived there until we removed to Free- 
hold, after my father-in-law’s death, eighteen months 
ago.” 

“ My dear ! ” the speaker glanced around her in 
mock concern. “You really must be circumspect! 
That reminiscent sigh and far-off gaze upon dear old 
Baltimore would wreck your popularity in Freehold, 
were any resident but myself within hearing. The 
Queen of Great Britain and France and Empress of 
the Indies is not so much to be envied as you, who 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


3 


have married a Phelps, and are living upon his patri- 
monial estate in this favored corner of the globe. The 
only fear among your best friends is, lest in your 
prosperity you should lose sight of the wholesomely- 
humiliating fact that you were born somewhere else. 
Saxe says that people ‘ once born in Boston, need no 
second birth.' I verily believe the reason why the 
doctrine of the necessity of a ‘ saving change ’ has 
become unpopular in our churches is the implication 
it conveys that any native Freeholder could be unre- 
generate." 

Mrs. Reginald Lupton’s voice was her primary 
claim to notice and admiration. It may be character- 
ized as a fleece-lined legato. In pitch, it was con- 
tralto, and kept carefully in the middle register. Never 
hoarse and never shrill, it tempered sibilants and rip- 
pled around jutting consonants. The new acquaint- 
ance next discovered that she was slim and graceful ; 
thirdly, that there was fascination in the woman, not 
to be explained by any or all of her definable at- 
tractions. Her complexion was often sallow, seldom 
brilliant, unless when the room was overheated, or 
she grew animated in talk ; her mouth was so large 
that only perfect teeth and exquisitely curved lips 
hindered it from being a defect in her face ; her chin 
was rather prominent and her nose a thought too 
wide at the ba.se. The critic forgot every blemish 
when she looked at him out of — not with — a pair of 
great red-hazel eyes, soft as antelope’s, with danger- 
ous depths in them for susceptible men ; eyes that 
melted and laughed and darkened at her will. 

She w’as the second wife of a rich Freehold manu- 


4 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


facturer, whose wealth and enterprise had made the 
town, said neighboring villages that were dwarfed by 
its growth. He was his wife’s senior by a score of 
years, and had married her, a penniless girl of expen- 
sive tastes, ten years before the date at which our 
story begins. For two generations the Phelpses and 
Luptons had been neighbors and intimate, and the 
families as now constituted continued the habit. Mrs. 
Richard Phelps’s only daughter had fallen ill the first 
winter of their residence in New England, and in the 
weeks of watching and anxiety attendant upon the 
attack, Mrs. Lupton had greatly endeared herself to 
mother and patient. Since then, no day passed with- 
out interchange of kindly words and attentions. The 
grounds of the two houses joined half-way down the 
side-hill, a lilac hedge forming a nominal boundary- 
line. 

Mrs. Lupton had brought a dainty work-basket up 
the white gravel walk early this afternoon to sit with 
her friend on the piazza — the “ living-room ” of the 
family from the middle of May until mid-October, 
whenever the weather was moderately fine. 

The clambering wistaria, which, a month before, 
had hung the spaces between the columns with a pale 
purple curtain, was diligently putting forth a wealth 
of leaves, some green, others clear, pale russet, and 
faint, transparent pink, to break the heat and light at 
the western end of the portico. Opposite the central 
entrance of the house, the view of streets embosomed 
in noble elms, the glancing river, the engirdling blue 
hills, and of becalmed flotillas of clouds, pearly and 
snow-white against the June sky, — was unobstructed. 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 5 

Into this space 'the two matrons had drawn wicker 
rocking-chairs and a b'asket work-stand. 

“You are always severe on Freehold and Free- 
holders,” Mrs. Phelps said, with the indulgent smile 
that often favored her friend’s cynical sallies. “ Yet 
both have been good to you.” 

“Yes?” The tone was calmly interrogative, the 
eyebrows distinctly dubious. “ Perhaps because I 
ask nothing of town or townspeople. Having always 
lived in New York until I emigrated at my marriage, 
I could hardly be content to dwell in a cup and- 
saucer, such as Freehold and its valley, were it not 
that I have money and time for excursions to the 
real world whenever I am in danger of becoming ab- 
solutely asphyxiated. You are mistaken, however, if 
you fancy that I am popular here. Nobody is, who 
has a propensity to peep over the edge of the cup, or 
has imported ways and thoughts from the universe 
lying outside of the saucer rim. The people who 
live on the mills over yonder ; who finger my hus- 
band's subscriptions to public works and charities, 
eat his dinners and dance at my balls, — envy and hate 
him in their hearts, because he has more brains and 
money than they. If any could blacken your name 
or mine, — tie us up in sacks and make a Bosphorus 
of their respectable river, to-morrow night, the motion 
would be carried by acclamation.” 

She uttered these sentences smilingly, plying her 
needle with heedful regularity on the cambric she 
was hem-stitching for her baby’s frock. 

Mrs. Phelps tried to reply as carelessly : 

“ You talk nonsense for nonsense’s sake ! If you 


6 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


believed one-tenth of what you say, you would bar 
your doors to keep your neighbors out ; would neither 
visit nor entertain them.” 

“ You see I do both. Reginald’s business and 
moneyed interest are here. To subserve them, I 
play the gracious chatelaine to people who enjoy 
coming to my receptions, who accept drives and 
sailing-parties from me, and enjoy most of all the 
opportunity these furnish of railing at me behind my 
back. If my head were no higher than theirs, they 
would find much in me to like ; if it were lower, they 
would luxuriate in patronage of ‘ such a nice, deserv- 
ing creature!’ Freehold is a chartered city that 
doubles her population every ten years, which has 
yet never outgrown the chrysalis stage of village- 
hood.” 

Mrs. Phelps’s eyes roved lovingly over the picture 
enclosed by the vine-draped columns. 

“ A beautiful chrysalis ! I prefer it to the butter- 
fly.” 

“ You might say the same of a silkworm’s cocoon. 
The provincial taint will cling to Freehold should she 
ever count her citizens by the hundred thousand- 
The cup-and-saucer conformation must have some- 
thing to do with it. It is only an exaggerated ham- 
let, and in a hamlet the unpardonable sin is su- 
periority. You’ll find it out to your cost, some day, 
dear Dame Incredulous. The Phelps name and 
Phelps wealth will not always protect you. Don’t 
draw into your shell ! I am afraid of you when you 
get behind that quiet, impervious courtesy that listens 
to all and accepts what it pleases to select. A quarrel 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


7 


between us over Freehold moralities and amenities 
would be Much Ado about Less-than-Nothing. Rex 
tells me Marion intends visiting an Albany friend in 
a few days. Is it a relative ?” 

“ Only a cousin of her mother, for whom Marion 
was named. Her only near relative is the brother 
who lives in Harrisburg.” 

“ The one whose wife is difficile^ and with whom 
the poor girl tried to live when her mother’s death left 
her friendless ? What a benefactress you have been 
to her ! ” 

An uneasy flush warmed the other’s face. 

“ Not that word, please ! Marion Bayard has been 
like a young sister to me for five years, ever since she 
and her dear mother removed to the house next to 
ours in Baltimore. It was not her fault that she could 
not be happy with her sister-in-law. Roger Bayard 
married a pretty, vulgar, illiterate girl of low ex- 
traction who had not the redeeming trait of good- 
temper to make her tolerable to a refined, sensitive 
woman like his sister. I objected strenuously to her 
going to him, when the Baltimore home was given up, 
two years ago. When she came to me six months 
later, broken in health and spirits, I would not let her 
return. She has her own modest fortune, as you 
know, and Roger is very grateful to me for insist- 
ing upon her residence with us. He appreciates 
the incompatibility of her nature and habits and 
those of his wife, poor fellow ! But there is no bene- 
faction on my part. She is a blessing in our home.” 

“ Mr. Richard Phelps hardly agrees with you there. 
Why doesn’t he like your best friend t ” 


8 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Assertion and query were offered with the dulcet 
deliberativeness of Mrs. Lupton’s preceding remarks. 
The dark eyes rested calmly on needle and hem- 
stitch ; her head was inclined slightly to the left. 

The flush was a burn on Mrs. Phelps’s cheek. A 
sparkle more like anger than indignation flashed to- 
ward the speaker. She was seldom sharp in speech, 
but her accent had an edge now. 

“ I have never said that he does not like her." 

“He told me so, on Christmas Day, when her en- 
gagement to Rex was announced. As the boy’s step- 
mother I had a right to know how his betrothed was 
esteemed in her home. Mr. Phelps acknowledged 
that, while he did justice to Miss Bayard’s beauty 
and accomplishments, he hardly shared in your en- 
thusiastic admiration of her. He added, however, 
that she had many noble qualities, and that he could 
not but be grateful to her for the happiness she had 
given jw/. Do you know — ’’ a quizzical gleam steal- 
ing from beneath her thick lashes, — “ I fancy that he 
is just a tiny bit jealous of your paragon ? A hus- 
band so devoted is not likely to brook a rival near the 
throne." 

Mrs. Phelps laughed — the clear, vibrant laughter 
of a happy girl in the relief of a surprise that also 
amuses her. 

“ Richard, jealous ! It is not in him to distrust 
anybody he likes. He would have to change nature 
and name — cease to be Richard Phelps and my hus- 
band before he could doubt me ! " 

“ Do you never disagree ? ’’ 

“ Hardly disagree. It is an ugly word. When our 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


9 


opinions differ, we discuss — as I would weigh pros 
and cons within myself. It would be hard to quarrel 
with one whose temper is so sweet and generous as 
his.” 

“We are both married to the most charming of 
their sex,” Mrs. Lupton observed complacently. 
“ And, thus far, neither of us has cause for jealousy 
on our side — that we know of ! That is phenom- 
enal ! ” 

“ It is more phenomenal that a true woman, sen- 
sible, and sound at heart as you, should prattle pessi- 
mism. You would stake your life upon your hus- 
band’s continued fidelity, as I would my soul’s salva- 
tion on that of mine. I lose patience with you, some- 
times ! ” 

“ I ought to be piqued because you imply that you 
have more confidence in your lord’s fealty than I in 
the fidelity of mine. ‘ Life ’ and ‘ soul’s salvation ' 
are not interchangeable terms. Ah, well ! I confess 
that my Reginald is no better than the average 
spouse. The price of every woman’s supremacy is 
continual tact. So long as I can keep my charming 
man in a good humor with himself and me, — beguile 
him into the belief that I am clever, pretty, popular, 
and without other individuality besides that I share 
with him, — I may defy competition. When he praises 
other women, I outdo him in laudations of them ; 
when men admire me, I laugh, with him, in private, 
at their foibles and admiration. While I can not say 
that we never ‘ disagree,’ I am thankful to be able to 
assert that we go comfortably together in the hyme- 
neal harness ; more amicably, perhaps, than more 


lO 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


spirited steeds who whine and foam their bits if 
separated for an hour.” 

Don't, dear ! ” Mrs. Phelps laid down her work to 
lay a pleading hand upon her friend’s arm. “ Some 
things are too sacred for jesting. You love your hus- 
bond fondly and entirely, and he worships you. It is 
a sacrilege to speak of management and artifice in 
this connection. Nothing he could do would shake 
your affection or ab.solve you from your allegiance to 
him. Leave such ‘profane and foolish babblings’ 
to wives who were bought and sold like other mer- 
chandise.” 

The face turned to the serious speaker was dim- 
pling with roguishness. 

“ It is worth while to play the pessimist for the 
sake of driving you to yet loftier heights of opti- 
mism. I don’t comprehend how you can breathe so 
far above the earth. I must break off all talk with 
you — earnest or playful — for the present. I see a 
seamstress who calls by appointment, going in at my 
gate. Good-bye, sweet saint ! I shall probably keep 
Reginald in a good humor this evening by bringing 
him over to see you.” 

She ran lightly down the slope through the gap in 
the hedge ; in another minute, waved her hand back 
to her late companion from her own door. 

Mrs. Phelps had arisen and gone as far as the edge 
of the portico with her guest. Instead of resuming 
her chair, she put her sewing together in the work- 
basket, set it back against the wall, and began walk- 
ing up and down the long colonnade. The amused 
smile that had followed Mrs. Lupton home gradually 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


II 


faded into thoughtfulness that was all untouched by 
gloom. 

As — if our story is to have a heroin-e, — it is this 
woman, we do well to look at her critically as she 
paces the firm boards trodden by five generations of 
her husband’s name and kin. 

She was, at this time, thirty-six years of age, — six 
months older than her husband, — a trifle over medium 
height, dark-haired and gray-eyed. Color and flgure 
were good, her voice was clear, full and admirably 
modulated. The Freeholders had pronounced the 
bride Richard Phelps brought to visit his birthplace, 
fifteen years before, “ nice-looking and real sociable.” 
They said now that she “ looked right down handsome 
sometimes.” She had been carefully educated, and, 
since her marriage, had read much and with excellent 
judgment. Without other accomplishments than a 
fair degree of skill in musical rendering, and a deft 
turn at versification, she was a genuine admirer of 
talent and generous in the expression of the same. 
She was an agreeable, rather than a brilliant talker, 
yet one with whom most people talked their best. If 
to set others at their ease, and make them in love 
with their own thus-developed selves, be a rarer gift 
than self-display, Mrs. Phelps possessed it without 
suspecting the endowment. That she was really 
interested in nearly everybody she met, and disliked 
few, was, to her apprehensions, sufficient reason why 
they should appear well and seek her society. She 
was so used to being liked that her sense of humor 
took the sting out of surprise when she encountered 
disfavor. Of enmity, she never thought. Why should 


12 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


any human creature wish her harm? Her whole 
nature, physical and moral, was sane ; her sympathies 
w'ere ready and abundant. 

Maternity and wifehood were with her a passion. 
Home loves were the Ark of the Covenant, brooded 
over by angels, guarded by faith and loyalty from 
careless or profane hand. Life had been a fair 
tabernacle to her for these thirty-six years. First in 
the heart of a husband who honored as much as he 
loved her ; adored by her twin-children, a boy and a 
girl, just fourteen years old ; blessed with wealth, 
social position and friends, — there was reason no less 
than gratitude in the fervent exclamation that stole 
' .softly from her lips, by-and-by, “ Heaven never made 
a happier woman than I am to-day 1 ” 

She had paused in the wide central space from 
which the vines were pruned away. The setting sun 
had changed the blue hills to royal purple ; the cloud- 
flotilla, under a full press of rose-colored sails, was 
gliding eastward through deeps of faint, yet ineffable 
blue. The river was molten gold, shot with flame ; 
a surgeless sea of amber light rolled over the elm-tops 
upon roofs and streets and lawns. The gazer’s face, 
slightly uplifted to the witchery of rose, azure and 
topaz cloud effects, caught the blush of youth from 
their reflection ; her hands, lightly clasped, hung in 
front of her ; the soft folds of her white woollen gown 
fell still and straight to her feet. 

A young man approaching along the path Mrs. 
Lupton had taken, stepped upon the turf edging it 
that the crunch of the gravel might not betray him. 
As he drew nearer, he stood still, waiting to be dis- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


13 


covered. He was tall, — over six feet, — height 
exaggerated by a very slender figure. Allowing for 
the fair hair and complexion that always detract 
from a man’s real age, he could not have been more 
than twenty-three, and, although not actually ungainly 
had the look of feeling his length of body and limb. 
His eyes were brown and, just now, gleamed with 
fun and expectation ; his features were clean-cut, the 
mouth lightly shaded by a blonde moustache. 

A pair of robins dropped noisily from the lower 
boughs of an elm to the shaven lawn, and Mrs. Phelps’s 
eyes, following them, lighted on the smiling visage, 
not five feet away. 

‘‘ Rex Lupton ! How you startled me ! Did you 
flutter down with the robins ? Have you ever seen 
so many of the pretty, red-waistcoated rascals any- 
where else as in this town ?” 

She had given, or he had taken both her hands in 
greeting ; their meeting looks were cordially affec- 
tionate. 

“ The kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them ! ” she continued, motioning towards the gor- 
geous panorama of river, sky and land. “ A perfect 
afternoon for a ride? Our dear girl was sadly dis- 
appointed that you could not go. Even after what 
you said last night, she did not give up hope until 
your note at noon put the matter beyond doubt. She 
was more than half-inclined to postpone the excursion, 
but the children protested so piteously that, when 
their father offered his services as escort, she con- 
sented to go.” 

The young man’s step-mother would have guessed 


14 


4 GALLANT FIGHT, 


from the wavering of the honest eyes and a slight 
quickening of articulation on the latter clause of the 
sentence, that wifely influence had been privily used 
to bring about the proffer of escort-service. Mr. Rex 
Lupton was too thoroughly in love to suspect that 
any man in his senses would not be enraptured at the 
opportunity of sunning himself for two hours in his 
divinity’s presence. 

“ I would not have had her lose the glorious after- 
noon on any account,” he said in pleasant, refined 
intonations. “ She understands perfectly that every- 
thing — even the delight of attending her — must some- 
times give way to business,” 

“Do you know” — abruptly — “ I think you are the 
most patient heroic man in Christendom ? I dare say 
when you found it would be impossible to get out of 
the trammels, to-day, you neither swore, nor frowned, 
or so much as remonstrated with your father — only 
said, ‘Very well, sir!-’ and settled down to office- 
drudgery.” 

“ If you knew my father as well as I do, you would 
appreciate the folly of ‘ remonstrating ’ when he 
issues an order. His subordinates are drilled in true 
Roman fashion. When he says ‘ Go ! ’ or ‘ Stay ! ’ 
we never think of appeal.” 

“ Did you tell him why you desired leave of 
absence ? ” 

“ I simply asked if it would be convenient, I believe 
I said ‘ possible ’ — for me to be away from the works 
this afternoon. I put the question cautiously, for, 
as I told Marion last night, I knew w^e would be 
very busy. ‘ Quite impossible ! ’ he said. That was 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 15 

an end of all colloquy. There never is ‘ contro- 
versy’. ” 

Mrs. Phelps took his offered arm and they began to 
walk the porch, as she had done, awhile ago. 

“ Have you always yielded this unquestioning 
obedience to parental authority ? ’’ 

A passing spasm wrung and hardened the young 
fellow’s face. 

“ Almost always ! ” he said in a low voice. I re- 
sisted once.” 

“ Don’t tell me of it ! I beg your pardon. ” 

“ I could tell nobody else. It would humble me to 
have Marion know of it. I cower like a cur, or rage 
inwardly like a devil when I recall it. It helps, not 
hurts me to speak even of that time to you. You are 
not old enough to be my mother, but no other living 
woman has ever come so near to taking the place she 
left empty when I was a delicate child of ten. She 
had been dead a year when I answered my father dis- 
respectfully one morning at breakfast. How I hap- 
pened to do it is a mystery to me now. I think I was 
not well and felt cross. He knocked me out of my 
chair by the time the words left my mouth.” 

The listener stifled an ejaculation, but her face was 
less discreet in the expression of horrified pity. 

“ The fall stunned me. My father’s voice, telling 
me to ‘ Get up ! ’ recalled my senses. I tried to 
stand, but was obliged to drop into a chair. He ordered 
me to ask his pardon, and when I sat, dumb and, he 
thought, dogged, he locked me up in my room and 
went off to his office. I stayed in my chamber for 
three days, fed on bread and water and flogged daily 


i6 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


before I would submit. In the end, I begged my 
father’s pardon, and paid further penalty for my 
obstinacy in a fit of illness that kept me in bed for a 
fortnight.” 

Mrs. Phelps’s eyes were full of tears. 

“ Oyou poor, poor hoy ! If your mother had lived 
there would have been no need of the terrible lesson. 
Yet your father is very indulgent to the younger 
children.” 

“ He wisely leaves the management of them to their 
mother. She has wonderful executive ability. A will 
as strong as his usually goes with a hard hand. My 
‘ quiet ways ’ try his patience, but if I were more like 
him neither the same office nor the same town would 
hold us both. 

“ Forgive my egotism ! I forget how to be reserved 
when with you. You have opened a new world to 
me. I do not know myself for the shy, apathetic 
drudge who met you on this very spot, a year and six 
months ago. Do you recollect it ? You and Marion 
were taking a brisk ‘ constitutional ’ on the piazza. 
It was a fine frosty morning, and Isabel had asked me 
to bring a message to you. You held out your hand 
before I could give my name or errand — such a 
strong, friendly hand ! I noticed that, although you 
had no gloves on, your fingers were warm. Marion 
stood a few steps away while you said a kindly sen- 
tence of welcome ; then you presented me. She was 
wrapped in a furred mantle, with some miracle of 
snowiness and fluffiness about her head. Great 
heavens ! what a difference in my life that meeting 
and that minute have made ! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


17 


The suppressed passion in accent and face were 
best answered by silence. Mrs. Phelps had a rare 
genius for listening. Rex Lupton was confident of 
her tender sympathy while she uttered not a word, 
and the weight of her hand on his arm remained un- 
changed. They made two turns of the long piazza 
before she spoke again. 

“ I told you, on first hearing of your engagement, 
how glad I was for my dearest friend in her gain of 
your heart. I am gladder of it this minute. You will 
cherish and reverence her as she should be loved and 
reverenced. And she will make up to you for all you 
have lost and missed in your previous life. We had a 
long talk of this in her room last night when the rest 
of the world was asleep. She grows hourly into fuller 
appreciation of your character and aims. Her heart 
is fixed, however the brilliant sallies and varying 
moods some people attribute to waywardness, but 
which are to me one of her peculiar charms, might 
awaken doubts as to her stability of purpose. You 
have won a rich prize, Rex.” 

“ If I do not know that^ I am blind and ungrateful. 
I am not what is commonly known as ‘ a religious 
man,’ but as the knowledge of what she is becomes 
more apparent in our closer companionship, the sense 
of my unworthiness, the wonder that she should have 
listened favorably to my suit, deepen, until in the very 
dust of humility I am ready to cry out, ‘ Lord, be 
merciful to me a sinner ! ’ ” 

His voice sank to a thrilling whisper ; he bowed his 
head and raised his hat with the last words. 

Before Mrs. Phelps could reply, a pair of ponies 


i8 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


scampered up the carriage-drive that curved over the 
lawn from the street below. The riders were Paul 
and Salome Phelps. Warm, sweet radiance flowed 
over the mother’s face, her heart leaped from her eyes 
in welcome. The girl threw herself from the saddle 
before her brother could dismount, or Rex hasten 
down the steps to assist her, and flicked her pony 
lightly with her whip, a signal he obeyed by galloping 
off to the stable. Brother and sister ran up, side by 
side, to kiss their mother. Both were handsome chil- 
dren and near the same height, but strikingly dissimilar 
in features and complexion. 

Salome’s dark, intense face was her mother’s in 
miniature. Paul had borrowed chestnut curls and blue 
eyes from his father. 

“ My darlings, what will the staid Freeholders say to 
such racing ? ” exclaimed Mrs. Phelps. “ Where are 
Cousin Marion and papa? ” 

“ Miles behind us,” Salome panted joyously. “ We 
have not seen them in an hour.” 

“ You see,” struck in Paul, the roads are perfect, 
and I think the beautiful weather got into the ponies. 
There was no such thing as holding them.” 

Their voices were the same in quality and inflection, 
and both were the father’s. 

“ Always excuses for Gilpinism,” smiled the mother. 
“ Run off now, monkeys, and get ready for tea.” 

As the merry din of words and feet passed through 
hall and upstairs, she sighed, involuntarily pressing 
her hand to her chest. 

“ F Illness of happiness is kith, if not kin, to heartache. 
When I leave this full, beautiful mortal life, I charge 


f 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 1 9 

you to see that ‘ Blessed among women ’ is carved 
on my tomb. If the Giver of all good were, this hour, 
to ask me what mercy or boon He could add to my 
treasures, I have no answer ready. Some lives are all 
nights of weeping ; mine has been one long morning 
of joy. To you,” with a bright, loving glance, “sun- 
rise has just come ! ” 

“ It is passing lovely,” said Rex in a musing under- 
tone, lips and eyes moved by a smile that was marvel- 
ously sweet. 

Few called him handsome at three and twenty. 
His figure was too spare ; his bearing had, in general 
society, a suspicion of gaucherie^ begotten of shyness, 
which the Freehold cliques set down to haughtiness. 
Mrs. Phelps had adopted him into her motherly heart 
at their earliest interview, and contended stoutly for 
his personal comeliness. According to the gossips 
she had wrought enthusiastically in the match-making 
consummated in the lately announced engagement. 
Her influence was reputed to be boundless with her 
ward, the proud, capricious beauty, feared by the 
beaux and disliked by the belles of the provincial 
town, and nothing but Rex Lupton’s declared suit to 
Miss Bayard withheld harpy fingers from clawing to- 
gether and tainting equally his reputation and that of 
the imported mistress of the big house on the hill. 

The excess of the feminine element in Freehold 
society heaped up, and kept at fermentation heat, the 
elements of scandal, as a vast mushroom-bed where 
uncouth fungi throve rankly. 

Preserved by the catholicon of native purity and 
abundant happiness from misgivings of moral miasma, 


20 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Mr. Phelps continued to walk her portico, arm in arm 
with her adopted “ boy,” in full view of the sidewalks 
thronged with business men, operatives of both sexes 
wending their way from commercial and manufactur- 
ing “ down-town ” to the suburbs, while pleasure 
vehicles of divers sorts, streaming in from the beautiful 
country drives that were one of the vaunted attrac- 
tions of the city as a residence, lent an aspect of gay 
prosperity to the elm-shaded thoroughfare. 

Rex was first to espy the flutter of a dark blue rid- 
ing habit amid wheels and horses. The promenaders 
stood by one of the central pillars of the piazza, smil- 
ingly expectant when the equestrians entered the lower 
gate and rode slowly up the hill, their forms drawn in 
strong relief on the crest, against the rose saffron of 
the West. 

Miss Bayard accepted the assistance of her be- 
trothed in alighting, and, attended by him, mounted 
the steps, holding up her train with both gloved hands. 
She was a high-bred looking girl, with a classically 
oval face, a beautiful haughty mouth, pale-brown hair, 
with golden reflections where it rippled, and wide 
gray-blue eyes darkened by long lashes. Taller by a 
head than her hostess, she stooped to brush her fore- 
head with her lips in a hasty kiss that yet satisfied the 
recipient. Marion was chary of demonstrations in 
the sight of others, passionately fond in their confi- 
dential interviews. The matron saw moreover that 
her favorite was annoyed or more weary than she 
would confess. She had a masculine contempt for 
anything like physical weakness in herself. She was 
pale now, for her, and shadows lurked in the eloquent 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 21 

eyes. The brow, usually so clear and fine, was knot- 
ted with pain or irritation as she turned abruptly from 
Rex and asked if “ the children reached home safely.” 

Her quick-witted, warm-hearted confidante grasped 
the situation at once. The girl was piqued and cha- 
grined at Rex’s inability to keep his engagement, and 
not reluctant to have him know it, a matter that would 
right itself as soon as he had an opportunity to ex- 
plain the circumstances. To afford him this chance 
was, for the present, the thought uppermost in Mrs. 
Phelps’s mind. She hurried Marion off to change 
her riding-habit as she had Salome. 

“ As quickly as you can, dear. Rex will take supper 
with us. He has been waiting for you this half hour. 
If you do not spend an unconscionable time at your 
toilet, you can enjoy the finale of the sunset together.” 

Young Lupton escorted his betrothed to the foot of 
the staircase at the back of the hall, and Mrs. Phelps 
turned to look for her husband. He had not left his 
saddle, seeing Rex ready to wait on Miss Bayard, and 
as soon as she was on the ground, had ridden off in 
the direction of the stables. The wife stepped from 
the porch upon the macadamized drive, and strolled 
around to the rear of the house to meet him. 

The presage of falling dews was in the air in the 
cooler scent of the roses bedded in the space dividing 
the strip of lawn running along the back porch and 
the wing from the kitchen garden. They were in the 
flush of summer bloom, and the mistress, whose es- 
pecial pride they were, halted here and there to regale 
her senses with fragrance and color. Across the river, 
warm, dim shades were filling up the hollows of the 


22 


A GALL AW 7' FIGH7\ 


hills, dusky purple that would, when the red light 
should leave the horizon clouds, wr^lp the earth in the 
June twilight which only makes way for the dawn. A 
dissipated bumble-bee was sucking the last drop of 
syrup from a honeysuckle goblet as Mrs. Phelps went 
by the trellis ; the pair of robins she had seen flew up 
to their nest laden with a slug apiece ; half a dozen 
sparrows scratched and fought for the scattered grain 
on the stones of the stable quadrangle beyond the 
gardens. 

Her husband was there. While still separated 
from him by a clump of shrubbery she heard his voice, 
raised in a key he seldom used. 

“ I don’t care if he is farrier to the Emperor of 
Russia and the King of the Cannibal Islands ! He 
shall never touch a horse of mine again. Take her 
to-morrow morning to somebody else, if Freehold can 
support more than one blacksmith’s shop. If not, 
report to me and I will send her to Boston or New 
York.” 

“ My love,” said Mrs. Phelps in sympathetic 
anxiety, “ what has happened ? Nothing to Bess, 
I hope ? ” 

In speaking she went up to the handsome bay 
whose hoof the groom was holding, and stroked her 
sleek neck. 

“ She has limped all the afternoon. That villain of 
a farrier drove a nail into her foot yesterday when he 
shod her. I shall be agreeably surprised if she is not 
lamed for life.” 

“ I am sorry ! Poor Bess ! Has the shoe been 
taken off ? ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


23 


“ I have given all necessary orders.” To the groom, 
“ You will see that they are obeyed ! Did you come 
to call me to supper ? ” 

In addressing her again the waning light of the 
sun setting struck right across his face through an 
opening in the trees. His was a magnificent personal 
presence. Tall, grandly proportioned, with the walk 
and mien of a king, he was a man to be noticed in a 
crowd had his head been less noble, his face less 
engaging. Close chestnut curls covered the one, the 
expression of the other was intellectual and winning. 
Children and strangers “ took ” to him ; his friends 
were the comrades of years, some of a life-time ; 
servants slaved cheerfully for him ; in whatever social 
concourse he found himself, he was a magnet. Born 
to popularity as sparks fly upward and rain-drops 
fall, he had wrought out his destiny with graceful 
ease. 

He looked so pale and distraught now, shrank 
aside so visibly from the level rays that revealed this, 
that his wife felt a strange chill at heart, while she 
refrained from verbal comment. Her hand stole up 
to his shoulder ; lingered there for an instant, and 
slid down his sleeve while she talked. 

“ No, dear, Marion is changing her dress, and, 
should she be ready before we are, Rex is waiting on 
the porch for her. Wouldn’t you like to saunter 
through the grounds for a few minutes ? I cannot 
bring myself to leave the sunset yet. It must have 
been superb from Bluff Hill. Did you come home 
that way ? ” 

« Yes — no ! We came around through the valley 


24 


A GALLANT FLGJIT. 


road,” stepping forward with her at his side. “Isn't 
Rex Lupton going home to supper ? ” 

Mrs. Phelps looked up in surprise. “ Why, no, 
dear. I invited him to stay. I thought he ought to 
have Marion's society for the whole evening after the 
disappointment of the afternoon. You don’t mind 
his being here, do you ? ” 

“ No more than usual. It is one of the inevitable 
annoyances incident to the existing state of affairs, I 
suppose. Only — a man does long to have his house 
and family to himself once in a while.'* 

The wife was silent. He had intimated the same 
thing several times within a few months past. From 
inference, rather than from assertion, she had gath- 
ered the painful truth that Marion’s residence under 
their roof was, at times, less welcome to him than 
formerly. To-day Mrs. Lupton had told her in so 
many words that he did not like her friend, yet 
soothed the smart of the information in the next 
breath by repeating his expression of gratification 
that Marion’s society brought happiness to his wife. 
It is the very young, or the incorrigibly unphiloso- 
phical, who insist that things equal to the same shall 
be equal to one another, and fall out with their best 
friends because they are not mutually attracted. 
Mrs. Phelps was neither young nor irrational, and 
she hid her hurt. 

They wandered out of the rose-garden down one 
and up another of the gravelled paths intersecting 
the shorn turf with pleasing irregularity. At each 
turn they paused to look toward the darkening undu- 
lations of the hills behind which the sun fires burned 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


25 


low, but floridly still. One of the pair may have 
noted the fluctuating shades and glows ; the other 
gazed with eyes that saw not. Her heart labored 
heavily under vague apprehension of evil done, or 
approaching. A sickening suspicion associated her 
husband’s strange moroseness with his prejudice 
against Marion. Something had occurred during the 
ride to augment it, perhaps to heighten it into posi- 
tive aversion to one whom she loved as her eldest 
child. 

Richard dropped her hand, held loosely by his arm, 
suddenly and without apology to take a match-safe 
and cigar from his pocket, and scraped a lucifer on 
his heel. It spluttered spitefully, and went out ; the 
second spit bluely, and the scarlet head flew off upon 
his wife’s sleeve. 

“Take care!” said he harshly, “you will be on 
fire next." 

A silly, soft-hearted woman would have asked, 
snivelingly, what misdemeanor she had already com- 
mitted that the next should be so savagely predicted. 
This matron, accused by implication, filliped the cin- 
der from her gown and laughed lightly. 

“ Woolen doesn’t take fire so easily ! Your heel is 
damp with dew, I suppose. Won’t they light if you 
strike them on the safe ? ” 

For reply he snapped to the case, thrust it back 
into his pocket, and stalked on, his hands behind him, 
the unkindled cigar between his teeth. 

“ It passes my wits to see what you and your 
friend Miss Bayard find to admire in your other 
protegi., that cub Lupton, junior ! ” he said finally. 


26 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ I shouldn’t choose his father as my bosom com- 
panion, but he is, at least, a 7)ian with brains and will 
of his own. The son is a priggish puppy, a stiff, 
disagreeable cad, an attenuated milksop — and you 
women are making him more insufferable by pam- 
pering him into conceit of his fascinations. You will 
excuse me if I take a walk instead of supping with 
him to-night.” 

“ You are not well, darling. Why not go up to 
your room and lie down ? We will have a quiet 
evening there together.” 

She faced him in the walk, laid her hands on his 
breast, and raised eyes full of loving anxiety without 
a thought of personal pain, to those which looked 
over her head into gloomy vacancy. His lips were 
narrow and tense, his brows contracted. The motion 
that dislodged her hands from their hold was like a 
strong shudder. He put her aside imperiously. 

“ I am not to be schooled or wheedled even by so 
accomplished a diplomatist as yourself. I shall take 
supper at the Club.” 

He strode across the turf straight down the hill, 
reaching the fence at the base with a few hasty 
bounds. The woman left thus rudely alone stood, 
rooted to the ground, watching his fierce progress. 
He would surely return, or look back from the fence. 
He vaulted over it and went on. His wrath, aroused 
by whatever cause, must evaporate before he reached 
the first corner. He was quick-tempered, but he 
could never hold fire for five minutes at a time. 
After he vanished in the now silent vista of gardens, 
cottages and embosoming elms, she loitered on the 


A GALLA.VT FIGHT. 


27 


hillside, still expectant. If he did not turn back this 
would be their first quarrel. What had she done — or 
failed to do or say — to provoke him ? In a quarrel 
there must be reciprocity — contest. 

She sat down upon a rustic bench to think and 
watch and suffer. The purple dusks from below 
were rising to meet the slowly falling curtain of even- 
ing; every cottage had its home-light in the window; 
star peeped out after star in the sky, the wide, wide 
vault that from the Phelps place shut down close all 
around the world; a church bell began to ring so far 
down town that the solemn admonition of the chime 
was mellowed into tender entreaty. 

“ Mamma ! Mamma ! ” shouted the twins, seeking 
her in colonnade and garden. With an effort, for her 
feet clung to the earth, she ascended the slope and 
met them on the drive her husband and friend had 
ridden over an hour ago. 

“ Here I am, dear children ! ” her voice as clear and 
more even than theirs. “ I walked down the hill 
with papa. He has an engagement out to tea this 
evening.” 


CHAPTER II. 


R ex LUPTON was traversing the piazza alone 
when Mrs. Phelps returned to the house. 

I sent up a while ago to ask if Marion were ill or 
over-fatigued,” said he with involuntary ruefulness, 
she returned word by Salome that she would be 
down directly.” 

“ The door was locked, and Cousin Marion did not 
open it when she answered me.” Salome followed 
her mother into the hall to say privately, “ I did not 
tell Mr. Rex that, for fear it might make him more 
uneasy.” 

“ That was right and prudent, daughter ; I will go 
up myself.” 

While she spoke a white form appeared on the 
landing of the stairs. Superbly tall, with filmy 
draperies that enveloped and waved about her like 
mountain-mists, she arrested herself for an instant on 
the topmost step at sight of mother and daughter, 
then trod steadily downward. The blaze of the hall 
chandelier gave the picture to Rex Lupton, framed 
by the open folding-doors of the hall. The crimson 
carpeting of the staircase behind her, the oaken 
wainscot on one side, the massive balustrade on the 
other, made a recess of richly-tinted shadow out of 
which an incarnate goddess floated earthward. Pique 
at her tardiness, uneasiness as to the cause, impa- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


29 


tieiice — everything that was not consistent with im- 
passioned idolatry — fled at the sight. 

He came forward to meet her with a smile that 
told no more of the ordeal of the past hour than does 
the sunrise of the clouds dispersed by its ap- 
proach. 

“ Your ride has given you a matchless complexion, 
Marion, love,” Mrs. Phelps said lightly ; “ I hope an 
appetite as well!” 

She passed into the supper room, Paul on one side, 
Salome on the other. Their arms, interlinked about 
her waist, stayed the faint heart. Each face had her 
fond kiss, and the children separated to their places, 
Paul to her left, his sister on her right at the table, 
before the lovers entered. 

Marion Bayard was startlingly beautiful this even- 
ing. The exquisite texture and fairness of her skin 
suggested the epithet “cream-laid.” The creamy 
ivory was flushed on each cheek as with the reflection 
of a damask rose petal; her eyes shone and danced; 
the lofty repose of feature that earned for her, with 
unprized acquaintances, the reputation of hauteur, 
was exchanged for sportive gayety almost childlike in 
spontaneity and abandon. She chatted saucily with 
Rex, made common cause with the children in their 
fun, and bore herself toward their mother with min- 
gled deference and fondness, exceedingly lovely and 
altogether indescribable. 

Mrs. Phelps played the inconsiderable part left to 
her of amused auditor bravely, with no lessening of 
secret depression. Richard’s empty chair; the lack 
in the hum of talk of his resonant tones; the recol- 


30 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


lection of their parting on the hillside — kept her 
spirits beneath the reach of enlivening influences. 

Salome waited to accompany her to the piazza at 
the conclusion of the meal. The spiritual accord of 
the two was wonderful in quality and completeness. 
As the girl clasped her hands within her mother’s 
arm on their way out, she laid her cheek down 
upon it. 

“ Precious Motherlie! ” 

“ My sweet one! " 

That was all, but both knew what was meant — the 
need of comfort and the full gift of the same. 

One end of the piazza, and that the most densely 
shaded, was by tacit agreement given up to the 
lovers. A bamboo lounging-chair and an upright 
one stood there now inviting juxtaposition, but the 
white-robed goddess, a shimmering wraith in the fra- 
grant twilight, was flitting to and fro, followed 
rather than attended by her lover. 

“ I am restless — flighty — what women with nerves 
call ‘nervously excited,’ to-night,” she affirmed, still 
with a singular air of unsettled joyousness about 
her; “ I feel the quickening of wings at my heels. I 
wish you could waltz, Rex! You must learn if you 
would make me perfectly happy. My Lady, will you 
■play while Paul and I take one little turn?” 

“ I will,” interposed Salome, before her mother 
could reply. 

Marion called to her as she moved toward the 
drawing-room: 

“We will open the shutters and dance out here, h 
la Oberon and Titania! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


31 


The long casements opened to the floor. Salome, 
playing in the half-light shed into the great drawing- 
room from the hall chandelier, heard the beat and 
skim of rhythmic feet on the hard, smooth boards. 
Rex, who had retreated to the back of Mrs. Phelps’s 
chair, watched with her the dark light forms whirl- 
ing from shadow into shadow across the lake of radi- 
ance spread over the floor through the folding-doors. 
As Marion complained, he did not waltz. The self- 
consciousness, bred by his father’s criticism of his 
overgrowth and bashfulness, restrained him from 
exhibitions of skill and grace habitual with most 

society men.” He had scruples as to women’s 
waltzing — or so he thought. Since these were not 
shared by the proud, pure princess he served he was 
reserved as to their existence, but he never looked on 
when she was spun around the ball-room in another 
man’s embrace. Jealousy of Paul would be ridicu- 
lous. He admitted generously that the little fellow 
took his part creditably, keeping step so accurately 
that Marion gave him a toss and shake not taught by 
masters in conclusion, and a kiss as a reward of pro- 
ficiency. 

“ You are quite out of breath, my gallant Oberon,” 
she said, seeing him lean against the wall for steadi- 
ness, “ while I am like a just started humming-top, 
not half spun out. O Rex, you crystallized, galva- 
nized, dehumanized Punctilio! Why were you not 
taught in your youth — if you ever were young — my 
private opinion is you are the nineteenth-century 
fulfillment of the prophecy that a child shall be born 
a hundred years old — but why didn’t somebody tell 


32 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


you a couple of centuries ago that dancing without 
waltzing is a dead form ? How well Salome plays 
that Strauss waltz ! Doesn't it put a single symptom 
of musical madness into your feet ? Pshaw ! I 
forgot there is no music in your heels — or in your 
soul ! ” 

“ Will you accept me as an unworthy substitute ? ” 
said full, manly tones, and Richard Phelps stepped 
out of the curtaining darkness into the illuminated 
area of which she was the centre. 

His wife uttered a cry of glad surprise ; Rex, never 
ready at repartee, gave a little laugh of relief. 

Do ! do ! Cousin Marion ! " cried Paul in a trans- 
port. ‘‘ Nobody else waltzes like papa ! " 

Dutiful Salome, all unaware of the change of actors, 
played on with spirit, reconciled to task and solitude 
so long as she stood between her mother and bore- 
dom ; — the mother whose voice did not ring quite 
true this evening, and whose eyes were tired. 

Marion yielded herself without a word to the hand 
and arm that took possession of her. It might be a 
sensitive imagination, or super-acuteness of percep- 
tion, which brought to Mrs. Phelps a fleeting fancy 
that the girl had recoiled at the sound of Richard’s 
voice. It was blown away instantly by the rush of 
delight in her husband’s mode of making amends for 
his temporary irritation. He always atoned gener- 
ously for his few and brief outbreaks of temper. 
While he feigned to gratify Marion’s whim, he meant, 
in reality, to prove to her — his wife — that he was 
ashamed and sorry for his insinuated disapproval of 
her dearest friend and for his slurs upon Rex. 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


33 


Whole-souled and royal, he seized upon this favoring 
pretext of setting himself right with all, improved the 
opportunity with gracious tact. 

Paul’s vaunt of his father’s waltzing was not extrav- 
agant. Always agile and strong, he sustained and 
directed his partner with grace that made their 
motion, seen in alternate gleam and dimness, like 
visible music. The trio of observers stood close up 
against the latticed extremity of the portico to give 
them more room. Neither of the waltzers spoke until, 
at the twentieth turn, they halted at the other, and 
unenclosed, end of the porch. Then Mr. Phelps 
asked quietly, evidently in response to some sign or 
motion from his partner : 

“ Are you tired at last ? How nobly you kept it 
up ! You have magnificent staying-power.” 

Fie ! fie ! a sporting phrase to describe such an 
exquisite sonnet of motion ! ” 

Again the interruption was projected from the 
encompassing darkness, the speaker advancing before 
they could be startled. 

“ It is only ourselves, dear friends ! ” she continued, 

we have been admiring the al fresco dance for some 
minutes. Where are you, Rex ? What is your role 
while Mr. Phelps plays Young Lochinvar? ” 

Mr. Lupton was bowing over the hand of his 
daughter-in-law elect, having paid his respects to the 
lady of the house. 

“ My dear Miss Bayard ! I must remind you, in the 
interests of the Lupton clan, of the imprudence of 
sitting or standing in the outer air while you are 
heated by dancing. Since substitutes are the order 


34 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


of the day, will you accept my arm and allow me to 
lead you into the parlor ? 

Rex was last in the short procession that followed 
the pair. Indeed he did not belong to it except by 
courtesy, having loitered without purposelessly for 
several minutes, strolling off the step upon the drive, 
and, standing on the hill-brow, seemingly to gaze 
down upon the town and up at the stars. Soft dark- 
ness enfolded the quick earth caressingly ; the scented 
air that had, all day long, held the sunshine with 
tremulous joy, still pulsed in a languid ecstacy of 
memory. If Marion would come to him here, and 
alone, the hour and the world would be perfect in 
bliss and beauty. He sighed heavily in retracing his 
step to the now illuminated drawing-room. 

He was always ill at ease in his father’s society. 
The bitter-suave demeanor of his eldest-born puzzled 
many as much as it vexed Mrs. Phelps. That Rex 
was a disappointment to his ambition, and so nearly 
antipodal to his own dominant, audacious personality, 
as to awaken his contempt, hardly accounted for the 
systematic intolerance with which the parent viewed 
his son’s every action and word. Even the extreme 
courtesy of his bearing to the beautiful woman who had 
surprised everybody by accepting the hand of his heir, 
savored occasionally of mockery in over-acted adula- 
tion. She met it now, as always, with perfect temper 
and breeding. Rex, pausing in the doorway, beheld 
them in mid-promenade of the long stretch of car- 
peted floor, chatting together vivaciously. 

Reginald Lupton, Senior, would have been a master 
among men anywhere. In Freehold he was a king — 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


35 


and looked it. Richard Phelps, patrician from crown 
to heel, had not a more distinguished air than this 
son of a mechanic who had begun life as an operative 
in the extensive mills bequeathed by him to his only 
child. The single trace of the self-made man left in 
the polished citizen of the world was perceptible in 
the directness with which his masterful will drove on- 
ward. The brawn of the plebeian forced to toil for 
daily bread was in the arm that clove his descendant’s 
. way to success. Incorruptible integrity and a relent- 
less aim are a terrible combination when human 
creatures are the puppets worked by him in whom 
these are vested. No one dared charge dishonest 
doing upon the magnate-monopolist of the cup-and- 
saucer town ; nobody expected mercy when his inter- 
est suggested severity. 

His eyes, in shape and color like his son’s, were of 
a bright, hard brown ; his hair and full beard were 
slightly grizzled ; the flat back and well-lifted head 
were martial ; his articulation was refined, yet in- 
cisive. 

“ Her cheeks have not toned down to regulation tint 
yet,” he said, with playful gallantry, when Mrs. Phelps 
invited them to be seated. “ This is a sanitary 
measure for her ! With me, it is a horticultural study 
of the transformation of a rose into a lily ! ” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” sighed Mrs. Lupton, her wonderful 
eyes on Richard, who had taken a chair next to hers. 
“ Why can’t the young men of the period say things 
like that? When your generation and Reginald’s 
pass away, the art will be lost. Why not establish a 
School of Courtly Speech, in which compliment and 


36 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


bon mot and repartee shall be taught, instead 
of multiplying academies of philosophy and 
learning ? ” 

“ Mr. Lupton might add the endowment of such 
an one to his list of colossal enterprises,” returned 
the host. “ With himself as president, you as illustra- 
tive or clinical professor, and — ” slightly raising his 
voice until it reached Rex, who leaned against the 
door-frame with folded arms listening while Mrs. 
Phelps talked to him — “ with Mr. Reginald Lupton, 
Junior, as resident tutor.” 

Everybody heard him, and looked inquiry. Marion 
and her escort paused so close to the speaker that 
the voluminous folds of her white gown swept his knee. 
He arose instinctively as she confronted him. A 
swift cloud of displeasure or dislike swept over her 
face ; his eyes froze and glittered. He replied as if 
she had questioned, although her curling lip had not 
formed a syllable : 

“ We were preparing’ the prospectus of a Conser- 
vatory of Speech and Manners, wherein shall be taught 
all sorts of pretty ways of saying unpretty things : 
the latest inventions in glossy equivocations shall be 
patented and applied. Over and above all, the art 
of having always ready the right speech at the right 
time will be made a specialty. Mrs. Lupton is 
to be professor of the last-named fine art ; it goes 
without saying that you are to have a chair ; Mr. 
Lupton will be elected president by acclamation, 
and our friend Rex is to be resident tutor and 
coach.” 

Marion’s head was drawn back like the crest of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


37 


an eagle ready to strike his prey ; the dull gleam of 
fire was in her eyes ; her skin was as colorless as a 
magnolia-petal. 

“If it were a matter of learning how to speak — and 
to live — the truth — ” she retorted, rounding and giving 
each wgrd with a calm emphasis — “ and nothing but 
the truth ; — of keeping the heart unsullied, of showing 
by example, rather than speech, that honor and 
existence are never to be parted in a true man — here 
you have University, President and Professors — all 
in one ! " 

She had left the father’s side to take her stand by 
the son. With the last ringing utterance, flung out, 
as it were, with a little shake of the head and sudden 
impetus, — she threw her arms around his neck and 
kissed him — then glanced away like a flash of white 
light. 

Astonished and intoxicated, Rex stood transfixed, 
not offering to return the embrace he would have died 
to win. 

“ A mummy of the prehistoric peridd ! ” sneered the 
father in a rapid “ aside ” to his wife, who drowned 
it by clapping her hands softly, Salome and Paul 
following suit. 

The sound broke the spell. The fugitive could 
hardly have gained the stair-head when her lover 
darted in pursuit. 

“ Daphne and Apollo ! ” 

Mr. Lupton said it with a well-bred laugh that yet 
made Mrs. Phelps’s ears tingle. 

“ Or a modern — and amended — version of Actgeon 
and Diana,” said Mr. Phelps dryly. “ Madeline, 


38 


A GALLANT FIGFIT. 


love, may we light our cigars in here, or would it be 
more convenable to adjourn to the library ? " 

“ Smoke wherever you choose, my dear husband ! 
You do not need to be told that. I confess I don’t 
know whj we left the pOrch, where cigars are always 
admissible.” 

“On account of my husband’s rheumatism,” said 
Mrs. Lupton with a cool little gurgle of amusement. 
“ Solicitude for Marion’s health was a neat pretext. 
That is an illustration of my husband’s manner of carry- 
ing his point. He is the best mixture of Napoleonic 
resolution and Talleyrandian address ever com- 
pounded by a chemical Creator. Nobody resists him 
except myself, who on this occasion have made up 
my mind not to budge from this easy-chair until I 
rise for ‘ Good-night.’ But you must not have smok- 
ing in your ‘best room,’ my dear Mrs. Phelps! The 
Freeholders sport none of the small vices themselves 
and are venomously uncharitable towards foreigners 
who use cigars and wine. I would go to the stake 
for and with you, but I cannot be your backer should 
any of the denizens call while the burnt sacrifice is 
being offered.” 

“ Come, Lupton ! ” Mr. Phelps moved towards the 
door, “ we will avert the curse if we can, even if we 
send ourselves to Coventry in the effort.” 

The little mocker sent a shaft after them : 

“ Gallant heroes ! in your orisons and incense re- 
member us who give you the chance to jabber politics 
and business without interruption 1 ” 

“ What shams we are, and what shams we pursue ! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


39 


she continued, unrolling a gay strip she was crocheting 
for a cradle-afghan. 

She never paid a neighborly, informal call without 
bringing some piece of work, — a graceful trifle that 
made impressive, not lessened, the effect of speech 
and glance. The two women, left by their exiled 
spouses, drew their chairs nearer together when the 
children went off to bed. The bracket-lights over 
their heads cast about them a circle of coziness in the 
vast room, which was a parallellogram. It was up- 
held midway at the sides by two fluted pillars three 
feet from the walls, — a legacy from him whom Mrs. 
Phelps called “ Richard’s columnar ancestor.” 
Similar pillars divided front from back hall, and the 
door-posts were the same in miniature. Altogether, 
the house, entered from the front, had a sort of 
Fingal’s Cave effect, not dispelled by the level dis- 
tances of the state drawing-room, where corner 
shadows stole even in daylight, to the middle of the 
mingling subdued shades of sea-green and umber of 
the carpet, powdered with pink sprays like coral- 
branches seen through rippling water. 

The French windows, the candelabra, the soft 
delicateness of upholstery and carpets, the Oriental 
rugs and sheeny hangings, were — like Richard 
Phelps’s wife — imported and an innovation. 

“ What shams we are, and what shams we pursue ! ” 
moralized Mrs. Phelps’s crony with an air of meaning 
nothing in particular and everything in general, link- 
ing one absent-minded word tunefully to another, 
while she pulled her work straight and caught the 
gold crochet-hook in a worsted mesh. Then — gather- 


40 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


ing shining teeth, curving brows and eye -gleam, into 
her sudden smile : 

“ What does the little melodrama mean ?” 

“ Melodrama ! ” 

“ Only that and nothing more — perhaps — dear Lady 
Simplicity ! There was less passion in embrace and 
kiss than a woman with warm blood and not cool 
lymph in her veins would bestow upon her third 
husband’s step-mother. Marion is not given to 
‘gush.’ Having just settled in my inner conscious- 
ness why she promised to marry my solemn step- 
son, I object to the re-adjustment of my ideas. 
The elocutionary effort, and the demonstration that 
stunned poor Rex into idiocy, may have been lava- 
bubbles through the crust. What started the fires ? 
What has she been doing this evening? Who has 
been talking or writing to her — or looking at her, 
to-day ? ” 

Mrs. Phelps met the gaze and treble-barbed query 
with composure. Her face, when in repose, was 
serious to pensiveness. Every line in it was grave 
now ; her accent, if not rebukeful, was devoid of 
sympathy with what she heard. 

“ As you know, Marion has been with us all day. 
The lines of her character and motives are singularly 
fine and simple, although on a grander scale than 
those of ordinary women. Her apparent caprices 
never trouble me. The impulse that made her cham- 
pion Rex so warmly was altogether natural. She im- 
agined — erroneously, of course — that his peculiarities 
were held up to ridicule, and she flamed out in his 
defence. What could be less complex ?” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


41 


Nothing, assuredly ; except yourself. Your Em- 
ersonian talk of grand scales and simple lines is not fine- 
drawn fustian when one looks at, and listens to, you. 
I fancy I smell flowering thyme and buckwheat in 
your presence, a whiff from the wholesome days when 
women basted hems by a thread and heard the children 
say their catechism Sunday evenings. It was a nice, 
safe, easy-going life, that of our mob-capped grand- 
dames, a hundred and fifty years ago ! ” 

She changed the subject at a right angle, with no 
pretence of adroitness. Having dismissed a topic 
after this peremptory fashion, she could never be 
lured back to renewed consideration of it. 

Her interlocutor, uneasy, and, she owned to herself, 
unconscionably irritated by equivoque and innuendo, 
could neither reopen the discussion nor resist the 
charm of Mrs. Lupton’s sprightly gossip of people, 
books, and current events. The sharp “ tang ” left 
on the tongue by her local hits and subtle analy- 
zation of character and deed was, to Mrs. Phelps, all 
that hindered her best neighbor from being entirely 
delightful, a friend to be cherished for a lifetime. To 
her direct, “ simple ” mind, a degree of disloyalty was 
attached to habitual disparagement of the place and 
people among whom one dwelt by choice or necessity. 
She wanted to make the best of everything, sought to 
discern Freehold virtues, not foibles. It required an 
effort of will, she had discovered before this, to rid 
the mind of the aforesaid slight, but adherent “ tang 
to stand fast by her resolution to let her judgment be 
without prejudice, her approval without reservation — 
beginning with her present visitor. 


42 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Yet when Richard had walked home with the Lup- 
tons to get a book from their library, and she went 
back to the drawing-room to shut the piano, she 
caught herself repeating, — 

“ ' Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 

And without sneering others teach to sneer ! ’ 

“ It is a pity ! The vase is very lovely, the oint- 
ment would be so sweet but for that one noisome little 
gnat ! ” 

A movement in the hall attracted her attention, and, 
glancing up, she beheld Rex in the doorway. 

“ Ah ! come in ! ” her countenance clearing at 
once. “ Has Marion gone upstairs ? ” 

“ She has not come down. I have not seen her 
since she left this room.” 

‘‘ No ? I thought you overtook her ! ” 

“ I heard her lock her door as I ran up the stairs. 
Of course I could not follow her after that.” 

“ I don’t see why not!” 

His sad, heavy eyes opened in amazement. 

I could not presume so far, especially when — ” 
He stopped there. 

“ Rex Lupton ! in whimsical vexation. “ I don’t 
know whether to call you a prudish prig, or a tactless 
angel ! Even a Freehold-born Mrs. Grundy — (there I 
I am catching the trick, too ; more shame to me !) — I 
mean, who could find fault with such a modest, natural 
act as going to the chamber-door of the girl you are 
to marry, knocking politely, and asking through the 
panels — still respectfully — when and where you could 
see her ? Your scruples would make Caslebs envious ; 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


43 


you out-Grandison Grandison ! Did you expect her 
to come without being called ? I should have no re- 
spect for a woman who would — to quote your own 
expressive words — ‘ especially when ! ’ As for Mar^ 
io7i ! But go on. I should like to hear what you did 
next/’ 

I went to the library and wrote a few lines which 
I sent up by Salome, as she passed the door on her 
way to bed ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” leniently. “ What answer did you get ? ” 
None ! ” 

He said it in dreary wretchedness ; his young face 
so haggard that her large, deep heart ached all the 
way down. 

“ She neither came nor wrote ? All this time ? ” 

“ She neither came nor wrote, all this time. I 
waited in ‘ our corner’ of the piazza. I was there 
skulking like a thief, when my father and Isabel went 
home. Mr. Phelps was with them, so I came to ask 
your advice." 

“ Stay here ! I will go up and see Marion ! ‘ Not 

disturb her ! not trouble myself ! ’ My dear boy ! I 
have not lived thirty-six years in this world of crossed 
purposes and not learned that the straight road is 
always the shortest, and generally the safest. The 
idea of letting you two young things be miserable all 
night, when a dozen plain, motherly sentences will 
right everything ! " 

She went, with her jight, firm step, up the stair, and 
along passages to Marion’s room, and knocked. The 
first tap on the panels told her that the. door was 
locked. A second and a third elicited no reply. 


44 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


The serious mouth was resolute, but not stern, as she 
spoke, her lips close to the door that Rex might not 
hear her in the night-silence of the^ halls. 

“ Marion, dear, it is I ! You are not asleep. I 
must speak to you at once. I shall stand here until 
you open the door.” 

Key and knob were turned. Marion stood within 
the threshold, in her evening-dress. The counter- 
pane was smooth ; a shaded lamp burned on a stand ; 
a high-backed chair by the window showed where she 
had sat out the hours during which her betrothed had 
waited for her below. 

“ My child ! ” without prelude, “Rex would like to 
say ‘ Good-night ’ to you. He expected you to join 
him on the porch, as usual, but we know you had 
some good cause for disappointing him. He is alone 
in the drawing-room. Richard went home with the 
Luptons. I am on my way to the children’s rooms, 
now. Go directly down — won’t you ? ” 

She was gone before the other collected her 
thoughts for refusal or consent. 

Left to herself, Marion put her hand to her fore- 
head ; bewildered or irresolute. She was very pale ; 
hot tears that had not fallen had swollen and flushed 
her eyelids. As she turned towards the staircase, she 
drew in a long, fluttering breath between her teeth. 

“ I can do nothing else ! nothing ! nothing ! ” 

Rex moved forward to meet her with gentle self- 
respect, unlike the agitated mien he had showed to 
Mrs. Phelps. 

“You were very good to come down,” he said ; 
“the ride and dance together have wearied you sadly. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 45 

I am afraid. I hope you will have a restful night, 
and be quite yourself in the morning." 

He held her hands, not offering to draw her closer ; 
his quiet, pleasant voice did not vibrate to the mad 
heat and fling of the repressed heart against the bar 
he had laid across it ; his smile was a trifle con- 
strained, but kind and sweet. She fixed wondering 
eyes upon him under which his own did not change. 
There was metal of proof here which was generally 
mistaken for ice. 

‘‘ ‘ Quite myself ! ’ You hope that ! If you could 
see me as I am, you would not say it ! ’’ 

The accent of pain was so sharp, that one might 
have said he had struck her ; her fingers wrung his 
hard. 

“ I am a wretched thing, Rex — not worth your 
picking up. But such as I am — and I may never be 
a whit better — I do belong to you ! Say that I do, 
please ! " 

Belong to me ! ” 

Tenderness that was passion purified by adoration, 
glorifying eyes and smile, he took her to his heart ; 
kissed brow, lips and cheeks until she trembled in his 
arms like a captive bird. 

“ My love ! My queen ! My wife ! " 

She was too faint to stand when he released her, 
but she smiled at his ejaculation of alarm and self- 
reproach. 

“ You have taken my breath away ! I shall get it 
again directly ! " she panted from the chair in which he 
had placed her, and, as he caught up his hat to fan 
her, she laughed hysterically : 


46 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Who would have thought to see you play the 
impulsive bear ! That stiff construction doesn’t 
bring me a puff of air ! If that is your object in wav- 
ing it frantically you may be interested in the fact. 
Somebody is coming ! — We will be decorous again ! ” 
The ring of boot-heels on the stone steps announced 
the return of the master of the house, Glancing into 
the drawing-room in passing, he saw Marion raise 
herself hastily to her feet by grasping her lover’s 
arm, then lay her white hand on his shoulder. 

“ It must be late, dear ! ” Mr. Phelps caught one 
sentence, and lost the rest. ‘‘ Thank you for sending 
for me, and for your patience and love. I seem 
never to have understood until now how unutterably 
good and sweet you are. Now, you must go. I will 
try to sleep, and be ever and ever so much nicer than 
myself to-morrow.” . 

Mr. Phelps was closing the library shutters, and, his 
back being to the door, he did not hear her go by on 
her way to bed. She did not stay her feet, or address 
him. Her bitter murmur on the stairs went with the 
scorn of her haughty lip : 

It is amazing how rude a ‘ perfect gentleman ’ 
can be when out of temper ! An illiterate boor 
might wait for a guest’s exit, before beginning to 
shut up the house with such aggressive slamming ! ” 
She did not seek Mrs. Phelps, and the mentor had 
too much tact to come near her. The cloud that had 
spoiled the evening for, at least, four of the party 
had rolled by, leaving peace like that of the June 
night upon the heart of wife and of lover. 

Rex Lupton bared his head under the stars, and 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


47 


stood for a motionless minute before entering his 
father’s door. His lips never prayed ; his heart, 
often, although it may be doubted if he was con- 
scious of the act. He did not “ say his prayers,” only 
felt them, — sometimes in agony, seldomer, as now, in 
joy that knew no form of human utterance. 

Mrs. Phelps divined from her husband’s bound up 
the stairs what manner of face he would bring into 
her presence. It was handsome, sunshiny, and, as 
she met his eyes, eloquent with answering affection. 
He put his arm about her, binding in the rippling 
hair that fell below her waist over the white dressing- 
gown, and kissed her with a bridegroom’s fervor. 

I was sorry to have so little of your society this 
evening, my darling, but Lupton is considering a 
proposition that he will allow himself to be nomina- 
ted as Congressman from our district, and wanted 
to talk it over with me. The obstacle in his way is 
the difficulty of leaving his business. If his son were 
altogether competent to carry forward affairs without 
his actual presence, his way would be clear, he says.” 

It was said with judicial impersonality to which 
Rex’s champion could take no exception. Richard 
went on, laughingly : 

“ I advised him to make his wife Regent. What an 
ambitious little diplomatist she is ! Warm-hearted, 
too, with all her affectation of flippant pessimism. 
But I cannot expect any woman to be the peer of my 
glorious wife ! ” 


CHAPTER III. 


Then, if ever, come perfect days. 

Then, Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays.” 

M arion bayard gave the familiar lines with 
loving stress on each word. 

“ Who but Lowell would have said * warm ear ’ ? 
And what else could so happily describe the brood- 
ing hush, — the smiling, listening, cuddling — of the 
sky on an afternoon like this ? It reminds one of 
Mendelsohn’s music — and of you^ Madonna ! ” 

“You are a silly child, and I an elderly woman,” 
said her companion in loving chiding. “ Because I 
am nearing my dotage, is perhaps the reason I love 
you the better for your delicious and egregious flat- 
tery. Hark ! the concert is beginning ! ” 

They sat in a low-hung pony-phaeton, drawn up in 
the middle of the road. On one side arose a hill 
wooded to the crest with hemlocks, on the other, 
a thick belt of deciduous trees hid the valley 
and river. Behind them were boskiness and green- 
ery ; before them the Land of Beulah, and the De- 
lectable Hills, looking toward the Celestial City 
set in the clouds. Battlements of jasper, sapphire, 
sardonyx, beryl, jacinth, amethyst — a gate which was a 
single pearl, shining highways, the end of which was 
glory intolerable to bodily gaze, — were framed in the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


49 


arched opening through which the sunshine fell to 
their horse’s feet. Here and there, the straight bole 
of a hemlock had golden scales on the westward 
side, and splashes of molten gold had dripped be- 
tween the boughs upon the brown mantle laid over 
the breast of the hill. 

The friends often came to this spot at this hour to 
hear the vespers of the thrushes. It was a back- 
country road leading into the woods, rocky in some 
places, in others deep with sand, — and therefore, lit- 
tle travelled. The shy, rich-throated birds had much 
to say to one another in the summer sunsets. Recita- 
tive, response and choral sounded from depth to depth 
of foliage, — dulcet, rapturous, plaintive, as with hu- 
man heart-break ; wooing, as with divine comfort, — 
until the solemn woods held their breath and the 
“ warm ear ” of heaven bent nearer to listen. 

Mrs. Phelps ended a long pause, speaking softly, 
not to flutter the warblers : 

“ ‘ That’s the wise thrush ! He sings each song twice over. 

Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine, careless rapture.’ 

“ So says Browning ! I think he never could have 
heard our sunset choristers. Their ‘raptures’ are 
earnest to passion.” And, yet more slowly and mus- 
ingly, “ You will always be with me here, Marion ; 
although I should not see you, I should the spiritual 
presence and sympathy if you were in our world and 
I in another. This will be our oratory — yours and 
mine. I thank the Father every hour for His gift to 
me of you, my bonny song-bird ! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


SO 


Laying her hand on that which held the reins, 
she felt it grasped convulsively, then raised to the 
girl’s lips and pressed there, while hot, fast tears fell 
upon it. 

“ My darling ! ” remonstrated the motherly voice, 
“ you must not grieve over to-morrow’s parting. You 
will be back with us before the thrushes leave off 
their thanksgivings for the new summer-time. We 
shall miss you sadly, of course, but three weeks will 
soon pass.” 

Marion’s head sank upon her friend’s shoulder. 

“ I ought to go ! I must not stay ! ” she sobbed. 

But my heart is very near to breaking ! When I 
come back — if I ever do — ” 

“ Marion Bayard ! How dare you I What has got 
into your foolish little head ? ” 

“ I may die, you know — get smashed up on the 
train, — or fall in love and elope with an Albany mil- 
lionaire ! ” 

She sat erect and wiped her' eyes, laughing ner- 
vously, as in an abrupt reaction of feeling. 

“ The vicissitudes of life are many — heart-changes 
many-er — the vagaries of girls despicable beyond 
finding out. My self-contempt grows huger every 
minute.” 

“A poor compliment to Rex and myself.” 

‘ Why will you insistently couple the two names ? ” 
said Marion, petulantly. “ Or — there may be pro- 
found, unconscious meaning in the habit you have 
taken up. It is a pity you are not young enough and 
single enough to marry him. You are worthy of him, 
which I will never be ! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 5 1 

“ What of my poor Richard in that case ? Would 
there be an exchange of partners all around ? ” 

She was sorry for her levity on seeing the beautiful 
face alter darkly. There was a gesture of angry dis- 
gust, a painful flush, then a grayish pallor settled 
about mouth and eyes. 

“ Mr. Phelps and I would make one another miser- 
able if forced to live together in any relation. He 
would say the same if pressed to tell the truth. For- 
give me. Madonna, but you must not say such 
things ! ” 

She tightened the reins and the pony jogged down 
the shaded road toward the flaming West. Mrs. 
Phelps, shocked and distressed, could not at once 
put her regrets into words. This was so much worse 
than she had feared. Where is the wife who ever 
really resented her husband’s jealousy of the woman 
she loves ? Richard was too just and kind of heart 
to let groundless prejudice affect his treatment of a 
homeless orphan. But Marion’s sudden heat looked 
as if she had divined it. If she had, her intense, 
sensitive nature had exaggerated it beyond measure. 
It was for Richard’s wife and Marion’s friend to set 
the wrong right. I have called her tactful, but her 
tact was rarely shaded or sublimed into diplomacy. 
She could hold her peace advisedly, and give perilous 
topics a wide berth. When a crooked thing was to be 
rectified, a wicked thing rebuked, she went at it by 
the most direct route. 

They were in the open country at the bottom of the 
hill, still driving towards the city in the clouds, but out 
of hearing of the thrushes, when she spoke again : 


52 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


“You hurt me just now, dear, without meaning it. 
Of course I would not have another woman love my 
husband as I do” — laughing a little at the absurdity — 
“ but, it would be a genuine grief to me if you and 
he were not good friends. I have fancied once or 
twice, lately, that your relations are less cordial than 
they used to be — why, I cannot guess. This I am 
sure of, however ; if he has displeased you it was un- 
intentional. He admires and respects you too sin- 
cerely, — he loves me too well to wound or offend the 
creature dearest to me, next to him and the children. 
You must take my word for this.” 

Marion was mute ; her eyes, fixed on the horse’s 
ears, were tearless, but dulled into vacancy ; her face 
was set doggedly, color and softness had gone out of 
it utterly. The evening was very still ; the muffled 
rhythm of hoofs on the soft, moist road and the sub- 
dued crush of wheels were the only sounds in the 
wide, golden spaces they were traversing. Commons, 
covered with sparse grasses, lay about them ; the for- 
ested heights had fallen abruptly into a plain, beyond 
which flowed the river. On the thither bank of this, 
the town arose gradually from the water’s edge, beau- 
tiful for situation, fairest of American homes as seen 
now, in green-and-amber glows and purple deeps of 
shade. Mrs. Phelps remembered that June forever 
aa a month of sunsets, — this, the goodliest of all. 
That any one should be sad amid such beauty, with 
Heaven so near and Nature so prodigal in soothing 
influences, was inconceivable. 

She pushed her parallels further. Plainly, thorough 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 53 

frankness was the only system of tactics indicated by 
sense and feeling. 

I have been conscious of a jarring chord in the 
music of our home-life for a week, — ” she pursued, 
gently, — “ detected the first false note on the day of 
the horseback excursion, the afternoon when Rex 
could not go with you. I appreciate the delicacy that 
has led you and Richard to keep silence on the sub- 
ject of whatever disagreement then took place between 
you, through fear of paining me. I do not ask for 
particulars now. Whatever may have been the cause 
or manner of your misunderstanding, you. felt that I 
must not be called upon to take sides with either. I 
am right — am I not ? ” 

Yes.” 

Marion wet her lips with her tongue before articu- 
lating the monosyllable. 

I do not want to know how my husband has of- 
fended you. I only assert solemnly, that he could 
not do it intentionally, and that he is more willing to 
ask forgiveness for his blunder than you are to re- 
ceive his apology. I know him so well, you see. He 
was a mere boy when we were married, — a pair of 
love-mad, imprudent children. We deserve no credit 
that our union has been so happy. Richard has his 
foibles. He would not be so patient with my faults if 
he had not, but his soul and heart are crystal-clear 
to me. He is a frank, honorable, fine-natured gen- 
tleman, who is incapable of a mean action or motive. 
Marion ! my sweet child ! my very own friend ! I 
cannot have you disapprove of Richard ! He 
is my other self, and you have so grown into 


54 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


my heart that you cannot help belonging, in part, 
to him 1 ” 

One of the fashionable achievements of clumsy dis- 
comfort, yclept a village-cart, dashed up alongside of 
the phaeton while the last word was on the speaker’s 
tongue. It had come on with such speed that when 
the driver checked the high-stepping cob to speak to 
her friends, the vehicle rocked on the two heavy 
wheels like a tub in a chopping sea. The occupants 
were Mrs. Lupton and her eldest child, a pretty boy 
of nine. 

“ What a perfect evening ! ” cried the charioteer, 
holding in the eager horse until the cords stood out 
sharply in her wrists. “ Have you noticed the sun- 
set, and wonderful cloud effects ? Gerald and I have 
been admiring them this half-hour. Isn’t it exasper- 
ating, Marion, that poor Rex’s plan for escorting you 
to-morrow should have fallen through, after all ? 
You don’t mean that you have not heard of it ! The 
telegram came at noon, and I supposed, naturally, 
that he had communicated promptly with you. I for- 
got that love itself can not make hwi hasty. Yes ! 
Mr. Lupton must be in Boston to-night to address a 
political meeting of business men, and another in 
Lowell to-morrow evening. Rex can not possibly be 
spared from the service of Moloch before next week — 
if-then. You’ll wait for him, of course ! ” 

The sinews in the slight, strong wrists relaxed, the 
high-stepper was off like a meteor, churning up the 
damp, sandy soil, as he flew. 

Surprised and disappointed, Mrs. Phelps turned to 
her companion and saw eyes full of angry fire, cheeks 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 55 

on which the intense color of the horizon seemed to 
have concentrated in two burning spots. 

“ I hate that woman ! ” she muttered, behind set 
teeth. “ I hate her ! I hate her ! I could have killed 
her when she said that last thing. ‘ Wait ! ’ not the 
tenth part of an hour ! I shall go to-morrow in the 
face of father, son, and step-mother ! Don’t speak to 
me — please ! I have a familiar devil you know, who 
is mighty and will prevail at times. This is his hour 
and he will not be reasoned with. I don’t want him 
to vend you / ” 

Rex was on the portico when the rapid, silent 
homeward drive was finished. He was always pale, 
and the grave smile with which he saluted them be- 
trayed so little of what he must be feeling that Mrs. 
Phelps was actually vexed. He helped her out of the 
phaeton, then held up his hand to Marion, who had 
not stirred. 

“ I shall drive around to the stables,” she said, 
shortly and sullenly. 

He stepped into the phaeton, took the reins from 
her before she was aware of his intention, lifted his 
hat archly to Mrs. Phelps, and drove down the hill in 
the direction of the town. 

His advocate, left on the steps, laughed gleefully. 

If he only knew it, a coup d'e'tat like that, which 
forestalls denial, wins upon a woman’s respect much 
sooner than an indefinite course of courteous compli- 
ance with her whims,” she was thinking as Salome 
ran out to her with a telegram. 

“ For papa, motherlie ! ” 

To Marion her friend was “ My Lady” or “ Ma- 


56 


A GALLANT FLGH T. 


donna ; ” Paul, always, and Salome in the presence of 
others than the family, called her “ mamma.” “ Mother- 
lie” was a name of the child’s own invention, used in 
loving and confidential moods. To Rex Lupton’s 
apprehension, it suited her so much better than any 
other that he had ventured to apply it once or twice 
in their talks. It touched a place in her heart that 
not even her husband’s pet-titles reached. She 
stooped now to kiss the lips that said it. 

“ Isn’t papa at home, my sweet ? ” 

“ No, motherlie. He went out on horseback an 
hour ago. And the telegraph-boy is waiting for an 
answer.” 

The lovers were absent but half an hour. Mrs. 
Phelps met them with a beaming countenance and the 
air of one who has agreeable tidings to communicate. 

“ Do you hold to your resolution of going to-mor- 
row ? ” she asked of Marion. 

“ Yes.” The tone was not that in which she had 
asserted it before. She looked somewhat languid, 
but very gentle and lovely. “ My cousin expects me, 
and Rex thinks it doubtful if he can get off at all 
within a fortnight.” 

Rex seconded her, holding her hand while they 
talked. Lovers never “ minded ” Mrs. Phelps. 

“ She is right — as usual. Yet I do not like to have 
her travel alone — for obvious reasons,” stealing a 
proud smile at the fair face. “ I hope to find an es- 
cort between this and to-morrow noon.” 

“ Voila!'* cried the hostess triumphantly, showing 
a yellow envelope, until now held behind her back. 

Marion moved nearer to her lover who opened the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 57 

paper, so close that her cheek touched his sleeve while 
they read the despatch together. 

Albany y June 20, 187 — 

Richard Phelps : 

Important evidence obtained in Clerk's Office. Can 
you come on to-morrow ? 

E. Cartright. 

My darling ! ” 

The epithet escaped Rex involuntarily, as the girl 
slipped from the top-step on which they stood, and 
would have fallen backward but for his arm. 

Startled and pallid, she clung to him. 

I feel sick and jarred,” she said, brokenly. “ It is 
odd that such a little shock should set my head to 
whirling. Give me your arm upstairs, Rex ! I must 
lie down until I am better.” 

In his anxiety, he supported her into her chamber, 
and stood by while Mrs. Phelps arranged pillows and 
administered hartshorn. Marion had, in truth, nearly 
fainted, and the chaperone had not the resolution to 
send the poor fellow away until the girl’s color and 
voice were again natural. The first use she made of 
the latter was to say jestingly : 

“ If I am to indulge in these pranks often, I would 
do well to stay at home altogether. Unless my head 
leaves off reeling, I shall certainly not go to- 
morrow.” 

Mrs. Phelps had convictions on the same subject, 
divulged confidentially to Rex, below-stairs. 

Marion needs change of air and scene,” she pro- 
nounced. You men, no matter how considerate and 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


58 

sensible you are, can not enter into the vagaries of an 
engaged woman’s nerves. She has acted lately like 
one laboring under high pressure of excitement — a 
wild bird, caught and caged. Don’t stiffen up so de- 
fensively ! You wouldn’t love her so well if she were 
a decorous, commonplace Griselda ! This telegram 
is the sword that will cut the Gordian knot. Richard 
is one of the lawyers in the Blake will case, you 
know, and sent Mr. Cartright to Albany, Monday, to 
look up evidence. Of course, he must go in person, 
now, and will be more than happy to take charge of 
our dear girl, who is, as you intimated, quite too hand- 
some, besides being too precious, to be allowed to 
travel alone. It is only a second-best plan, but since 
your escort is out of the question, I can imagine noth- 
ing more satisfactory. I hear Richard’s voice ! I 
will speak to him at once ! ” 

She hastened around to the stables, telegram in 
hand. Richard had ridden in at the back way, and 
was just swinging himself from the saddle as she ap- 
peared. His color was clear and fresh with exercise ; 
the warm blue eyes that always deepened and softened 
at sight of her were so full of light, he looked so 
young and noble in the affluence of vitality and hap- 
piness, that the wife forgot her errand for one 
ecstatic moment. 

“ How grand, and good, and handsome — how 77iag- 
nijicent you are,” she cried, nestling in the arm cast 
about her. 

What a madly mistaken matron you are ! ” laugh- 
ing down at her earnest face. “ I was sadly chagrined 
when 1 came up early from the office to invite you to 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 59 

drive, at finding that you had run off with somebody 
else.” 

“You know I should have enjoyed nothing more ! 
But I had promised to go with Marion, and it is her 
last day with us. By the way, dearest, Rex can not 
escort her to-morrow after all — and here is a telegram 
from Mr. Cartright, summoning you to Albany. 
You wouldn’t mind taking charge of her — would 
you ? ” 

The timid inflection of the query was not without 
a tone of alarm at the change in his manner and 
countenance. He almost snatched the paper, glanced 
at the lines as at a nest of cockatrices, then tore the 
despatch into shreds and flung them from him. 

“ I wish you would not open my business letters, 
Madeline. A lawyer’s wife might understand the im- 
propriety of such meddling. This could have waited 
until I got back. I hope you have not mentioned it 
to any one ? ” 

“ I am sorry, Richard, but I have ! ” said the wife, 
bravely. “ Marion was so cast down because Rex 
could not go with her, and he so concerned lest she 
might have to travel alone, that I was indiscreet in 
my haste to relieve them. Then, too, Rex was about 
to look for another escort. If you can not go, he 
can find one yet. Please don’t be vexed, dear ! I 
acted injudiciously, but I meant it for the best.” 

“ Everybody means to act for the best,” said 
Richard, automatically and dreamily. “ Forgive my 
abruptness, but you have placed me in a most dis- 
agreeable position. It is not convenient for me to 
get away by to-morrow noon, nor — excuse me for 


6o 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


saying it, but you force me to be blunt — is the 
charming fia7icle the companion I would have chosen 
for the journey. Nor — again ! — am I the cavalier 
she would have selected as the alternate of Reginald 
Lupton, Jr. It isn’t flattering to a man’s vanity” — 
with a dry laugh — “ to play second-fiddle in any case. 
If your fair friend were consulted she would not have 
me in her orchestra at any price.” 

Mrs. Phelps rarely shed tears, but they choked her 
when she would have replied. The blow was un- 
expected and cruel. Parting hastily from her hus- 
band at a path that led to the side-door, she flew 
down this and up the back staircase to her chamber, 
stumbling blindly over the threshhold, and locked 
herself in. 

“ I seem to do nothing but blunder, now-a-days ! ” 
she sobbed, walking back and forth, chafing her 
fingers, and trying — for awhile, vainly — to beat back 
the childish fit of temper and wounded feeling. 
“ Richard has not said so many sharp, unjust words 
to me in ten years before as in the last ten days. I 
could be almost thankful that poor Marion is going 
away for a few weeks. The troubled waters may 
settle and clear when we are left to ourselves.” 

Mothers and housewives are usually forced to 
nurse hurt sensibilities and splenetic humors in very 
dark closets and attic “ cubbies ” of the soul, if they 
indulge in the costly, pets. The “ white glare that 
beats upon a throne ” finds a modest reflection in 
the lime-light of domestic manufacture focussed upon 
the presiding genius of every home. Dinner must be 
ordered, beds made, rooms dusted, linen sorted, and 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


6l 


stockings darned, though hearts ossify and brains 
soften under the weight of calamity. In the face of 
papa’s faultfinding with herself and his unjust rulings 
of family law, mamma must uphold his infallibility to 
his children. At the expense of personal prestige, 
she defends him to a larger constituency, makes all 
the world liars, herself included, that his crest may 
pass unhacked. The truth, and the consequences 
to her own conscience of the denial of it, are faced 
in sleepless midnights when Peccavi is whispered 
in the ear of offended Heaven, but in the sight of 
her fellow-mortals she does not blench. Her oratory 
is a movable tabernacle, set up in store-room corners, 
beside cradles and cots, and never safe from prying 
eyes and careless feet. 

The tea-hour drew on apace. Richard would soon 
be up to get ready for the meal. His touch had 
never found his wife’s door fast. She set it wide 
open, after bathing her eyes and saying a prayer of 
two sentences on her knees at the bedside. At the 
sound of his tread in the hall, — the tread which she 
had often said, fondly, always brought new life into 
the house and a gladder beat to her heart, — she 
turned herself from the window with a spray of 
honeysuckle she had leaned out to pick. Her eyes 
were dry, her cheeks cool, a smile of welcome stirred 
her lips. 

“Your boutonniere \s redidy” s2l\6. brightly, and 
when he had changed his coat, washed his hands, and 
brushed the chestnut curls ruffled by the heat, she 
went up to him and pinned it on his lapel. 

He kissed her for thanks. 


62 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


‘‘ I was a brute, just now, my sweet one, and you 
are a merciful angel. I should think you would be 
glad to be rid of me and my fiendish humors for a 
day or two.” 

“ Treason ! ” She laid a gentle palm upon his 
mouth. “ The king can do no wrong. I must be 
more prudent in action, less hasty in speech, here- 
after.” 

He completed the a7ne7ide honorable at the tea-table 
(he never did anything by halves), by speaking with 
natural off-handedness of his departure for Albany 
by the noon train on the morrow, and telling Marion 
that he would be happy to take charge of her and 
her luggage. She was less gracious, yet not discour- 
teous. 

You are very kind, Mr. Phelps ! ” looking directly 
and calmly at him. “ I shall not decide until the 
morning whether or not it will be advisable for me to 
go. I have lost heart somewhat in the expedition, 
but I may feel differently to-morrow.” 

“ Of course, I do not presume to interfere with that 
decision. My poor services are at your command 
should you require them.” 

Mrs. Phelps did not wonder that the rejoinder was 
more formal than the offered civility, nor that her 
husband settled a keen, inquisitive glance upon Mar- 
ion's down-dropped lids, after making it. Had the 
conjecture been tenable, she might have thought that 
he distrusted and was watching Rex’s affianced wife. 
The mysterious variance between the two so dear to 
her reminded her of the sound produced by a pin 
Salome once dropped among the piano-strings. It 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


63 


was a dissonant thrill, rather than discord, but it set 
teeth on edge and passed, like an electric eel-let, 
from joint to joint of the spine. Again, she said 
inly, that Marion’s going would give her an opportu- 
nity to pull the warped web straight, and eliminate 
the disturbing intruder. The misunderstanding was, 
thus far, only like a crack in the varnish of the lute. 
Daily and hourly jarring might widen it into a rift 
past mending. She must ignore seam and jar, yet 
essay with tender, tactful touches to close the one 
and harmonize the other. 

Mrs. Lupton dropped in, in the evening, to bewail 
her temporary widowhood and project delightfully 
ridiculous philippics at local politics and politicians. 
Richard listened, encouraged and applauded for half 
an hour, then arose with manifest reluctance, and 
excused himself for withdrawing to write business 
letters in the library. 

‘‘ It goes without saying how much rather I would 
stay out here with you two ! ” he added, passing his 
hand affectionately over his wife’s head and looking 
out into the moon-washed distances. “ But legal ne- 
cessity knows no law — not even that of love and 
beauty. So, an revoir ! ” 

The night was so bright, the air so dry and balmy, 
that the lovers preferred a stroll along the gravel- 
walks to the seclusion of their vine-hung corner. 
They came into sight, once in a while, of the two 
matrons left on the piazza, drifting slowly across the 
crest of the hill, like dark and white-sailed convoys 
on a silvery sea. 

“ How happy they are ! ” Mrs. Phelps brought it 


64 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


out in a contented sigh. “ ‘ All the world loves a 
lover !' I am almost ashamed to confess how fully I 
am making Marion’s romance mine. I dream and 
idealize and plan for her until the sweet excitement is 
but a degree less than the happy unrest of my own 
engagement. I suppose every woman understands 
this vicarious enjoyment of another’s golden age.” 

“ Unfortunately for romance, all women are not 
like you — and Marion ! ” The pause was just long 
enough to make the conclusion of the sentence slightly 
invidious. “ My vicarious satisfaction is in the idea 
that Rex will soon have a home of his own and that, 
then some of my alkaline offices will be remitted. 
Reginald is vitriolic acid, — his namesake son, oil — Oil 
of Lucca, if you will,— clear, odorless, and slow ! I 
am oxide of calcium — carbonate of soda — protoxide 
of potassium — whatever typifies powerful neutrality, 
nullifying, blending, taking away from one and giving 
to another. Reginald told me, one day, in a fit of 
good-humored vexation (he is never cross with me)^ 
that the whole sum and description of my office might 
be given in one word — lye ! Spell it either way ! 
The times I have lied that boy out of disgrace and 
his father into graciousness, would give a lightning- 
calculator work for a week. Evil done for good’s 
sake doesn’t hurt my conscience, but the vocation has 
become monotonous. Yes ! I am selfishly glad that 
Rex’s marriage is probable, and not distant.” 

“ You have been very kind to the motherless boy, 
and he appreciates it,” said Mrs. Phelps, gravely. 

“I have done my duty — not as a stepmother, but 
as a moderately sensible woman. I took the boy into 


A GALL A AH' FIGHT. 


65 


my confidence the day I arrived here from my bridal- 
trip. He had refused to attend the wedding. I hope 
his father had not tried to flog him into it, hut I have 
askad no questions. He met me, colorless and cold 
as a January icicle, and called me Mrs. Lupton,” 
Such a forlorn figure as he was ! Taller at fourteen 
than I at twenty-one, slim and stiff, he reminded me 
of a pair of curling-tongs, with such a haughty look 
on his face, and the most miserable eyes you can ima- 
gine ! I didn’t offer to kiss him, or do the conven- 
tional sugary-spicy second-mother in any other way ; 
only talked to him as to any nice lad whom I might 
happen to dine with. But when Reginald had gone 
to the works in the afternoon, I made friends with his 
son. It was my proposal that he should call me 
“Isabel” instead of “Mother,” and regard me, — I 
didn’t even say, “as a sister,” but “ as another fellow.” 
We have never had a dispute, or exchanged a cross 
word. Our relations are peculiar, perhaps, but the 
device works smoothly. 

“ Whatever the catechism may say of the chief end 
of man, that of woman is to keep the running-gear of 
life well oiled. Friction is always ‘bad form.’ Need- 
less discomfort is one of the cardinal sins according 
to my creed.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


HEN Marion, having parted with Rex on the now 



VV deserted portico, ascended the stairway toward 
her chamber, she saw that her hostess’s door was ajar. 
This was the signal that she wished to be visited by 
her friend before retiring — one usually obeyed with 
alacrity. For an instant the girl’s step lagged, her 
face denoted doubt or unwillingness. Then she went 
forward and tapped lightly. 

Mrs. Phelps appeared, clad in a white wrapper, her 
hair wound loosely about her nobly-formed head. 
She was too stately in build and carriage to look 
girlish, but, in the imperfect light, she was a handsome 
woman of not more than five-and-twenty years old. 
Her happy, busy life was to her the gift of perpetual 


youth. 


“ Richard will be up late writing, so we can have a 
long talk,” she said, cheerily. “ I will come to you, 
since I have made my preparations for the night, and 
you have not.” 

When both were in Marion’s room, and the visitor 
had drawn a chair to the window and established her- 
self therein, she continued : 

“ Rex is certainly one of the least selfish of men, 
the most generously-considerate of lovers.” 

“ That is a time-worn observation,” said Marion, in 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 67 

mock demureness ; “ I have an impression that I have 
heard it a couple of hundred times before.” 

“ You will hear it a couple of thousand times if we 
all live five years longer, and I do my duty by you 
both. As I was saying, Miss Bayard, when you of- 
fered that irrelevant remark, where will you find 
another man who would be punctual to the appointed 
hour of leave-taking on the night before such a long 
absence, because he feared to weary the girl who is to 
travel to-morrow ? I did not expect you upstairs be- 
fore eleven o’clock at the earliest.” 

“ You might have counted more correctly upon the 
principles and habits of the ‘ model young man of 
Freehold,’ as his bitter-sweet step-mamma calls him.” 

“ That is one thing I want to speak of,” inter- 
polated Mrs. Phelps, eagerly. “ I am convinced that 
you habitually, and I occasionally, do her gross in- 
justice. I wish you could have heard her describe 
Rex to-night, as she saw him for the first time, and 
how she arranged the terms of their intercourse. She 
told it in her flippant, cynical strain, but one could 
discern the throb of the mother-heart through it all.” 

She rehearsed the dialogue as faithfully as was con- 
sistent with her desire to put the step-mother in the 
most amiable light compatible with truth. 

Marion had not lighted the gas, the moon sufficing 
to show her the way from dressing-table to wardrobe 
and drawers. She listened, silently, while divesting 
herself of the gown she had worn that evening, and 
assuming a peignoir, so pale-blue in tint that it looked 
dead-white in the moonbeams when she seated herself 
opposite the narrator. Her hair drooped over her 


68 


A GALLAA^T FIGHT. 


shoulders, partially veiling one cheek, making a curtain 
on the other side, on which the perfect profile was 
silhouetted distinctly, so statuesque was the stillness 
of the bent head. Faint sparkles of light from the 
diamonds on the third finger of her left hand, struck 
face, gown, and hair. 

“ I feel that you are not in sympathy with me,” 
Mrs. Phelps interrupted herself to say at length. 
“ Your judgment is biassed by the inevitable intoler- 
ance of youth. As you advance in years your moral 
standard will be less rigid, your spiritual perceptions 
clearer. The bare fact that this poor woman married 
a rich, elderly man when she was young and poor, is 
to you prima facie evidence that she is coarse-natured 
and mercenary. Yet she may have loved her husband 
for himself. He is a very attractive man, and is de- 
voted to her. Give her the benefit of that and other 
doubts. She has so much that is admirable in her that 
you must recognize it by-and-by.” 

“ I recognize your large, almost divine, humanity,” 
answered Marion slowly and sweetly, without raising 
her head ; “ your depths of charity for your kind, 
your heights of hope for them. While you pleaded for 
this ‘ poor ’ creature, I laid my Sneering mouth in the 
dust at your feet and asked, ‘ What am I tdiat I should 
judge even her?’ She is of my class. Madonna! 
Never in time or eternity will either of us be worthy 
to stand on your level.- In the world to come we will 
be together on the other side of the fixed gulf — she 
and I — and looking over to the blessed plains where 
you walk in white array, will stare, each into the other’s 
hopeless eyes, and say, ‘ As was the sowing, so is the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


69 


reaping. God was not mocked or deceived, although 
she was ! ’ No, no ! ” drawing back from the other's 
gesture of horrified entreaty. “ You have had your 
say, and I will not have my mouth stopped ! You and 
Rex are in innocent complicity to beguile me into the 
belief that this ‘ poor ’ thing, who cajoles all men, and 
blinds a woman now and then when she chances upon 
a heart so clean that dirt will not stick to it — this 
nonpareil wife and mother, this exemplar to step- 
parents, even while she disclaims the title — this gar- 
nished, garish lie ! is in any respect what she chooses 
to seem. You and he sincerely believe that she is 
willing to have me marry Rex. One reason that would 
hold me fast to my engagement were there no other, 
is that she dreads my entrance into the family. We 
have distrusted and antagonized one another from our 
first meeting. She is a spy and informer, she would 
be a traitor if she had ever professed to be true. 
When I become a Lupton in name, there will be war to 
the death. Heaven speed the day ! " 

She laughed out in uttering it — not wildly, but, it 
seemed, naturally ; raised her clasped hands above 
her head, then brought them down lightly upon her 
companion’s knees, looked saucily into her anxious 
face : 

“You are so troubled that you cannot speak — like 
the obfuscated Psalmist. I am reminded all the time, 
when with you, of John B. Gough’s definition of a 
‘ verdant man,’ — “ One who is so entirely honest that 
he thinks everybody else as honest as himself.' Let us 
gather up the shivered remains of my step-mother-in- 
law-that-is-to-be-please-PIeaven-and-not-Mrs.-Isabel- 


70 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Lupton — and give them decent burial ! There is 
enough that is corrupt in me to alienate you from me 
without introducing other offensive elements. Tell 
me, you dearest and purest woman on this sin-scarred 
globe, is it easy for you to be good ? Does it come 
by nature or by grace to do right always and every- 
where ? Does temptation take hold of you at some 
one point, and will not be dislodged ? Do you really 
enjoy the practice of virtue 1 I read something the 
other day that has haunted me ever since. It pur- 
ported to be the prayer of a saint : ‘ O God! show 
kindness to the wicked ; for on the good Thou hast 
already bestowed kindness enough by having created 
them virtuous ! ’ We, the wicked — (don’t interrupt me. 
Feel my pulse and how cool my hands are !) — we, the 
wicked, know as well as did that fusty old moralist, or 
whoever said it for him, that the things we barter sal- 
vation for as pearls of price are as apt to be viper’s 
eggs, that in hatching will sting us to the death. But 
the barter goes on ! Madonna ! Lady of Mercy 1 ” 
sinking to her knees before the listener could guess 
her intent, and casting her arms about her friend — 
“ I am very wretched ! very sinful ! Pity and pray 
for me ! ” 

Mrs. Phelps’ nature was too healthy, her lines of 
thought too direct, to allow her to sympathize with 
mere sentimentality. Morbidness was, to her percep- 
tion, disease. She drew the fair head to her bosom, 
kissed, patted and held it there, while she replied to 
the rapid incoherence of the long monologue. Her 
diagnosis was characteristic : 

“ Nine-tenths of your spiritual struggles are phys- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


71 


ical malaise, precious child. Your fine nei'vous sys- 
tem is unstrung’, your will-power weakened. Intro- 
spection was always your foible. I used to tell you — 
don’t you remember ? that you reminded me of Mrs. 
Whitney’s Anstiss Dolbeare, who was ‘ always hold- 
ing up her soul,’ to her husband, ‘ with a thorn in 
it ! ’ Recent events have augmented your malady. 
The mental and moral retina magnifies your defects, 
and exaggerates the virtues of others in like propor- 
tion. All of us have noticed that you were not quite 
your usual self of late. When you come back to us 
from Albany, we will laugh together over these dis- 
torted fancies. The change of place and air, even 
the necessity of exerting yourself to make friends 
with strangers, will work wonders. The prescription 
is homely, but good. 

“ Now, my dear girl — so dear that I must laugh at 
all the crazy invectives she has been launching against 
herself — I must not spoil your beauty-sleep by more 
talk. You are too tired to know what you are saying. 
I must tell you as I used to say to Paul on stormy 
nights, — ‘ Whatever you hear, believe that it is noth- 
ing worse than the wind, and the harder it blows to- 
night, the more likely are we to have fair weather to- 
morrow ! ’ ” 

She raised the kneeling figure, put back the luxu- 
riant hair from brow and cheeks, reaching up to do 
this, Marion being taller than she, all the large, be- 
nign maternity of her nature in smile and look and 
touch. 

“ My precious friend ! I cannot have you unhappy 
even from imaginary causes. I will light the gas 


72 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


now, and ring for a glass of iced milk and a biscuit. 
You ate very little supper, and you will not sleep if 
you go to bed fasting.” 

Marion met her as she returned from giving the 
order, rested her hands upon her shoulders and held 
her fast — gazing into her eyes with a strange, piteous 
smile, — a thirsty, hungry aching, not translatable by 
the tongue. 

“ You Christians profess to believe in the devil, yet 
call his directest attacks ‘ganglionic affections.' 
Yqu mistake the cry of a tormented soul, more afraid 
of itself than of Satan in person, for‘ digestive irritabil- 
ity.’ What kind of fluid does ‘ saving faith ’ put into 
people’s veins — lukewarm milk, or glycerine ? But 
there ! ” kissing her passionately, once and again — 
“ forgive me, placid, untempted heart ! You would 
comprehend my bitter jargoning if you could, I know. 
You would help me if you knew how — wouldn’t you ? ” 

“To the half of my kingdom, love ! ” in simple fer- 
vor. “ Here is Mary with your lunch. Put it here, 
on the dressing-table, Mary ! ” 

An envelope lay by the toilet-cushion, sealed side 
uppermost. In pushing it aside to make room for 
the tray, Mrs. Phelps noted with the surface-con- 
sciousness which serves human creatures instead of 
instinct, that it was oblong, rather large, and bulky 
as with an enclosure of several sheets. She had 
nearly called Marion’s attention to it, but a second 
thought-wave, as shallow as the first, suggested that 
the girl had probably sealed up some of her own 
papers to be left behind or packed. 

Then she forgot it altogether. 


^ GALLANT FIGHT. 


73 


Marion came down late to breakfast next morning, 
appearing at half-past eight, dressed for travelling. 
Salome was at the piano. Mr. Phelps and Paul were 
marching up and down the piazza, the boy animated 
in talk, the father hearkening smilingly. Both raised 
their hats to the young lady as she met Mrs. Phelps 
in the dining-room door. The table had been cleared 
and reset for one person. Mrs. Lupton, cool and 
dainty in a much be-laced muslin morning-gown, sat 
by a window looking out upon the porch, a long 
wreath of honeysuckle in her hand. The day was 
sunny, fragrant, and altogether delicious. 

“ You are going then ? ” said the hostess, kissing 
Marion, and holding her hand while she led her to 
her chair. 

Her eyes were clear and soft, Marion’s languid; tone 
and mien in one were blithe ; the other moved and 
spoke drowsily. 

“ I have made up my mind — yes ! I am sorry I 
overslept myself.” 

The wisest thing you could do, my dear — (Straw- 
berries, James ! No cream ! Miss Bayard prefers 
them without.) I would not have you awakened, 
even to see Rex, who was over here an hour ago. 
Mrs. Lupton has just come in to say that she will send 
Thomas down with a note as soon as she learns what 
you mean to do.” 

“ She would probably prefer to write a line her- 
self,” suggested the step-mother, courteously. 

She had merely bowed at the girl’s entrance. She 
seldom kissed anybody. Much as she disliked “ Free- 
hold ways,” she was a genuine New Englander in 


74 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


non-effusiveness ; was as chary of caresses as if she 
had been born in the shadow of the bald, gray obelisk 
that perpetuates a misnomer. 

A spent surge of color swept Marion’s cheeks. 

“ It is not necessary for any one to write,” she said 
haughtily. Let Thomas say that I shall go to 
Albany by the noon train.” 

Rex Lupton was at the station when the Phelps 
carriage drove up. Mr. Phelps sprang out first. In 
his faultless travelling suit of gray cloth, he was the 
most distinguished-looking man there. His Panama 
hat, with its narrow mourning-band ; his gray gloves 
stitched with black ; the cut and set of his clothes, 
the fashion of his boots — were metropolitan, not pro- 
vincial. His frank, genial face made the dim interior 
of the smoky station bright ; porters touched their 
hats and grinned as he passed ; men bowed with a 
hearty word of inquiry or farewell ; women looked 
admiringly after him. Like some floral darlings of 
the sun, he gave off, as well as absorbed light. Hav- 
ing achieved that rarest of accomplishments, affability 
untinged with patronage, he found the Freehold pub- 
lic willing to forgive his unbroken good-fortune, 
almost glad for and with him in his evident enjoy- 
ment of it. 

Rex took possession of Marion, and Richard gave 
his arm to his wife. He was unusually gentle with 
her, even for him, to-day, and glanced down lovingly 
at her as they walked toward the platform. 

“ Expect me back to-morrow night, or the next 
day at farthest, my darling. I shall telegraph as 
soon as we reach Albany. You will sleep more 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


75 


soundly for knowing that we are safely at our jour- 
ney’s end. And take care of your precious self while 
I am away. Take the children for a long drive this 
afternoon, and ask Mrs. Lupton to pass the evening 
with you. I do not like to think of you as lonely 
without Marion and myself.” 

“ How thoughtful you are of me ! One would 
think me a bit of egg-shell porcelain instead of a sub- 
stantial pipkin able to bear all sorts of hard knocks 
without being nicked. I hope you will spare a little 
solicitude from my well, hearty self to bestow upon 
that dear child whose white cheeks and forced spirits 
make me uneasy for her. She is ill at ease from 
some cause, Richard, sick in body, or in mind, or in 
both. Her wild talk terrifies me sometimes. I could 
almost fancy that her mind is slightly unhinged. I 
know you do not approve of her in all respects, but 
for my sake be patient with her to-day. I wish you 
could draw her out to confide her trouble to you, 
whatever it may be, and impart to her something of 
your hopeful, optimistic philosophy.” 

The train was entering the building ; Rex, with 
Marion on his arm, looked over his shoulder for 
them ; the baggage truck rumbled by ; passengers 
poured hustlingly out of the waiting-room ; the noisy 
tide swept all forward. 

Richard had only time to say hurriedly — “ Depend 
on me to do my best ! ” 

In another minute and a half, his wife and Mari- 
on’s betrothed stood together on the platform, her 
loving eyes and Rex’s pale, patient smile directed 
toward a window of the gliding parlor car, framing a 


76 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


white, beautiful face whose mournful intentness of 
gaze haunted the two for many a day and year after- 
ward. Richard’s warm, lucent, blue eyes, sweeping 
mustache, and chestnut curls, uncovered in his part- 
ing salutation, showed beyond the pallid visage. 

“ She is in safe and kindly keeping, thank 
Heaven ! ” uttered Mrs. Phelps, turning away with 
her companion. 

“ She could not be in better ! ” responded the 
lover, heartily. “ Your husband is the most enviable 
man I know. I would give ten years of my life to 
have his magnetic power over his fellow-creatures. 
One always feels better, stronger, and happier for 
being in his society.” 

‘‘ Thank you ! ” 

Through a happy, foolish mist she saw the freshet 
of sunlight breaking through and gilding the smoke 
that billowed against the begrimed rafters to the 
arched entrance of the station ; the tracks and the 
dingy quarter of the town they made dingier. The 
rattling of wagons and the rumble of an in-coming 
freight train, obliged her to raise her voice some- 
what, and it broke a little : 

“ I know he is all you say — and more. But I like 
to hear you praise him. The best wish I can make 
for you and Marion is that, at the end of fifteen years 
of married life, you may be as happy in each others’ 
love, as utterly contentful (I like the obsolete word !) 
as we are. It is the only life worth living, Rex ! ” 

I know it ! ” 

At her request, he stepped after her into the open 
carriage, and they drove up town together. The 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


77 


streets were full of people ; Mrs. Phelps bowed this 
way and that, and Rex’s hand was scarcely off his hat 
lor ten seconds at a time, while they slowly threaded 
tie business thoroughfares of the lively little town. 
Their salutations were very dissimilar in manner and 
spirit. Her social, benevolent temperament told in 
every motion. She bowed to acquaintances as if gen- 
uinely pleased at the meeting, to such as she knew 
.veil with a smile eminently flattering to the recipient, 
provided he believed in the sincerity of the demon- 
stration. Rex was alike gravely impassive to all. 
Inferiors in station called him “stuck-up”; associates 
in business and in society considered him cold and 
unapproachable. While nobody cared to cast the 
elder Lupton’s lowly origin in the ambitious man’s 
face, the son heard often that his grandfather was a 
common mill-hand. One of the few consistencies of 
our common human nature is the disposition to cast 
mud at starched clothes. The laundry-work of Rex 
Lupton’s mental and moral “get-up” was conspic- 
uous in stiffness and Chinese polish. His personal 
unpopularity was no secret to him. If he had dis- 
covered it in no other way, his father’s habitual sar- 
casm on this head would have enlightened him. 

“‘When t\iQ cats are away, the mice will play ! 
said a raucous, spiteful voice on his side of the car- 
riage as they turned a corner. 

The landau drawn by a pair of glossy bays, and 
driven by a smart colored coachman, almost grazed 
the curb-stone on which a rotund citizen gossiped 
with a neighbor while waiting for a street-car. Both 
men laughed coarsely. Rex gazed steadfastly for- 


78 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


ward, his countenance unmoved by so much as the 
flicker of an eye-lid. Mrs. Phelps chatted on lightly 
unsuspicious of comment and application. Neithe 
was lost upon her companion, inly writhing in t’ 
anguish of a sensitive nature that is likewise self-coi 
scious. He would hold everything pertaining to 
him and his, high above the touch of soiled hands, 
and, if possible, out of the sight of vulgar eyes. To 
at least one-third of the foot-passengers they met and 
passed, the equipage, with its gleaming panels and 
prancing horses in silver-mounted harness, was a per- 
sonal grievance. Given excess of self-esteem, an 
eight-generation-old belief in the right of every citi- 
zen of the Republic (because it is a Republic, and he 
a citizen) to enjoy all the rights possessed by any 
other, and you have Communism, z;;/pure and simple, 
let the field in which it roots itself be Boston or 
Chicago. 

The tasteful apparel of the clear-browed woman 
who leaned back on the springy cushions and shaded 
her eyes with a lace-edged, ivory-handled parasol ; 
the style and material of her escort’s morning coat 
and hat ; the evident satisfaction of the pair in each 
other’s society ; the damning coincidence of this in- 
solently-triumphant progress through the most public 
part of the town at mid-day — furnished appetizing 
matter for dinner table talk in a hundred homes, in a 
community that prided itself upon the diligence with 
which the members minded their own business. The 
second class of egoists defined by the satirist, as 
“ those who live themselves, but don’t let others live,” 
had more than a two-third majority in the hill-girt, 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 79 

self-righteous city, that would always, according to 
Mrs. Lupton, be a village. 

“ ‘O, Paradise ! O, Paradise !’ ” quoted Mrs. Phelps 
surveying the landscape from the colonade. 

Rex lingered at her side, for a moment, after they 
alighted. A shimmering haze, luminous with Mil- 
ton’s “ azure sheen,” like the diaphanous, faintly- 
purpled veil which the master of the water-color 
brush, Winslow Homer, hangs between us and his 
pictures — swam over valley and sky. 

“ The long, bright river, slowly drawing 
Its waters from the purple hill ! ” 

“The lines are always in my mind when I look over 
this scene on summer days,” pursued the lady, her 
sweet, quiet eyes feasting themselves upon it. “ It is 
a beautiful thing to be alive, Rex ! such an ‘ alive ’ as 
ours ! 

“ Won’t you lunch with the children and myself? ” 
descending suddenly to the homely and the hospit- 
able. “ Our mid-day meal is at one. Come in and 
help make it cheerful ! We do not dine, strictly 
speaking, in papa’s absence.” 

He declined with sincere thanks. His luncheon 
must be a hasty affair, since he had already been so 
long absent from the office. In saying it, he offered 
his hand and she laid hers in it with frankest sisterly 
affection. 

“ Come what may, you and I will always be 
friends ! ” an impulse she could not resist or explain 
made her say. “ If you were my brother — or son — I 
could not be more fond of you. That you should 
love and marry the dearest friend I ever had, or ex- 


8o 


A GALLAAH' FIGHT. 


pect ever to have is one of the perfect consummations 
that mortal dreams rarely have. I shall have a tele- 
gram this evening. Shall I send it to you ? ” 

“ Let me come for it — please ! We will console 
each other — measurably ! ” 

He said it with the shy archness that was his 
brightest expression, raised her ungloved fingers to 
his lips, and ran fleetly down the winding walk toward 
his own home. 

It was after eight o'clock that evening when he 
again passed the lilac-hedge and mounted the slope. 
The moon still hung so near the horizon that her light 
was yellow-white. “ The C7'eam of the evening,” 
Mrs. Lupton had called the hour. 

Her stepson had left her on her front porch, her 
eldest boy and girl with her. From policy and habit, 
she made herself entertaining to everybody. The 
woman who hoarded her brillancy for society, and 
turned her lightless side to her family was, she was 
wont to say, “a veritable lunatic.” The children 
thought mamma “ great fun ”; Rex was smiling at her 
parting sally as he came around to the front of the 
Phelps house. 

“ Hush-sh-sh ! ” sounded from among the vine- 
shadows, and Salome, his pet and ally, glided out to 
him. 

“ Mamma thinks I have gone to the post-office with 
Paul,” she whispered. “ She is singing to herself ! ” 

The shutters of one French window were open, 
those of the other shut. The child and the new- 
comer sat down on a rustic settee near this last. The 
low-hung moon, looking horizontally between the leaves 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


St 


of the creepers, showed in indistinct outline the figure 
at the piano. “ Mamma’s made-up songs” had been 
the delectation of the twins since their nursery-days. 
Few others ever heard them. Rex’s honorable 
scruples as to the propriety of his position were 
quelled by the recollection of his tuneless perceptions. 
Nobody need fear /iis criticism. 

The performer had a good touch, and a sympathetic 
voice, a flexible contralto of fair compass. This Rex 
did not know. What he did recognize was the infinite 
tenderness in tone and word, the purity of enunciation 
that gave each syllable definiteness and meaning. 
Each stanza was .first murmured to a faintly-throbbed 
accompaniment, consisting chiefly of chords, the 
vocalization was rather a chant than a tune. Some- 
times, she sang a line twice or three times over, alter- 
ing words or emphasis. Whatever were the faults of 
metre or musical measure, the auditors, keeping time 
to both with heart-beats, felt hour, music and senti- 
ment to be sweetly accordant. 

Thus ran the wife’s love thought — 

“ They say that spring is the time for love ; 

Do I love you best in the spring ? 

When the sky is soft and blue above. 

And warm life stirs in everything ; 

And the bird sings low to his brooding mate, — 

Darling! is it then my love is most great? 

“ Or is it in summer that I love you the best ? 

When the sun shines hot o’er land and sea, 

When Earth in her rich green robe is dressed, 

And all is fair as fair can be. 

When Heaven smiles above, and Earth smiles below, — 

Do I love you most then ? I’m sure you must know. 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


S2 

“ Do you think my love is in autumn most strong ? 

When on still airs the falling leaves float ; 

When fair days grow short and cool nights grow long. 

And even the robin has hushed his sweet note: 

When the clematis stands like a pale-sheeted ghost, — 

My own ! is it then I love you the most ? 

You know that my love is the same alway, — 

For, dearest, my heart is just as true 
When snows falls fast and the skies are gray 

As when flowers are bright and heavens are blue. 

Through all the sunlight and clouds of our life, 

That love cannot change — for I am your wife / ” 

She was singing it low to herself when she stepped 
through the long window upon the piazza, her India 
muslin gown waving and trailing after her : 

“ When Heaven smiles above and Earth smiles below! ” 

Salome came forward. 

Mamma, dear, don’t be startled ! Mr, Rex and I 
are out here enjoying the moonlight and the honey- 
suckles.” 

The delicate address with which she avoided men- 
tion of the m»sic, leaving the singer to suppose that 
their attention had been absorbed by the beauty of 
the night, was an inheritance. Her mother held that 
to make life as easy for other people as truth and 
duty allow, was a part of every-day religion ; to say 
disagreeable things unless, under compulsion, was a 
violation of the Golden Rule. 

“Ah ! good-evening, Rex ! ’ she said in an unembar- 
rassed tone. “ The telegram has not come yet. I 
told Paul to call by for it on his way home from the 
post-office.” 

She raised herself on tiptoe to pull down a spray of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


83 


honeysuckle. In lowering her hand with the flowers 
in it, she caught sight of Paul’s head above the rise of 
the hill. He was running, swerving oddly from side 
to side of the drive, as if dizzy. When he saw his 
mother he threw up both hands and stopped. She 
ran out to him, followed by the others. 

“ Mamma ! mamma ! ” gasped the boy, catching 
blindly at her. “ Try — to bear up. I — I — wouldn’t 
tell you — if I could — help it. There has been — a 
dreadful accident on the railroad, and — papa and — 
Cousin Marion are both — killed! ” 

He shrieked out the awful word hoarsely, and fell 
to the earth in a dead faint. 


CHAPTER V. 


W HATEVER of active kindness Mrs. Lupton had 
showed to her next-door neighbors up to the 
time of the railway accident that filled the hitherto 
unsmitten household with woe, was as nothing to 
what followed the event. Without bustle or friction, 
the house was put in order for the arrival of what a 
second despatch described as “ the dead and dying 
victims of the disaster.” 

The lifeless body of Marion Bayard was extricated 
from the burning ddh7'is of the wrecked train. It was 
hoped that death had been instant. The fire had 
seized upon her clothing before she was drawn out. 
In the plunge down the embankment, Mr. Phelps w’as 
dashed through a window and caught under the car. 
Two ribs were broken ; there were indications that 
the lungs were pierced by the shattered bone ; one 
arm was fractured, and a deep scalp-wound on the 
back of the head might mean that the brain was hope- 
lessly injured. 

His wife did not quit his bedside for twelve hours 
after the wreck of superb manhood was laid there, but 
hers was not a watch of passive nor yet of obtrusive 
sorrow. Gratefully declining Mr. Lupton’s offer to. 
take her place while the surgeons did their work, she 
won their respect by her silent self-possession and in- 
telligent cooperation. She did not lament aloud ; the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 85 

deep, dark eyes were tearless ; her speech studiedly 
calm. 

“ I have done that woman injustice,” said Mr. Lup- 
ton to his wife, the night after the accident. “ I 
should have said that, in a trial like this, her affec- 
tions would overbear her reason. She has herself well 
in hand.” 

“ Do the doctors give any hope since the last con- 
sultation ? ” 

“Not a ray ! It is almost certain that there is in- 
ternal hoemorrhage. He will hardly last out the night. 
Then she will break down. I had to go to her for in- 
structions as to the other funeral. I declare, I never 
so hated an errand before in my life ! She grew 
deathly-white and quivered like an aspen-leaf when I 
broke the matter to her ; then, rallied and talked ra- 
tionally and calmly. The poor girl’s brother and his 
wife are abroad, you know. There is no one to dis- 
pute Mrs. Phelps’s wish that the interment should be 
in the Phelps’s lot in our cemetery. It is a sensible 
arrangement for all interested.” 

“ Have you consulted Rex ?” 

“ She asked me to speak to him, then said : ‘ No ! 

perhaps it would be well for me to write to him.’ She 
actually wrote this note, of a dozen lines or so, in full 
sight of her dying husband, and her hand did not 
tremble ! There are nerve and will for you ! I 
knocked at Rex’s door this evening before coming 
over, and asked if he had any message, and if he 
wanted anything. He answered without unlocking 
the door that there was nothing I could do for him. 
Has he eaten anything all day ? ” 


86 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


“ I sent up a tray at dinner and again at tea-time. 
He will let nobody see him suffer, you may be sure ; 
still, he ought to have admitted you. I must go home 
for an hour now, before settling matters here for the 
night. Go with me ? No, my dear. It is clear moon- 
light, and one of us should be here all the time. I 
will take the note to Rex." 

It was unsealed, and before delivering it to her 
stepson she read it in the privacy of her chamber. 

“ Dear Rex (it began) : 

“ In days to come, it will comlort you to think that 
our darling's last resting-place is in our own beautiful 
Freehold Cemetery. She will be laid there, by loving 
hands, to-morrow afternoon. In her brother’s ab- 
sence, I am called upon to act in the matter, and I 
feel that I am consulting your wishes with my own. 

“ They tell me she is very lovely as she sleeps, to- 
night. I cannot leave my husband to see her yet. 
Should you wish to go to the room, the visit would 
better be paid at ten o’clock, when the house is quiet. 
Salome will wait for you on the piazza and be your 
guide. 

“ Affectionately yours, 

“ Madeline Phelps." 

Mrs. Lupton refolded the sheet and tucked it back 
into the envelope, thoughtfully. 

“ That woman has fine natural taste," she said, 
aloud. “ Not a drop of medicated oil and wine here ! 
She knows the raw surface would not bear it. How 
well she understands him ! " 

She carried the letter to Rex’s room, with no affec- 
tation of treading softly, tapped gently, slipped the 
envelope under the door, and walked audibly away to 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


87 


the other end of the corridor. There, she pulled off 
her slippers and crept back. The envelope had dis- 
appeared ; her acute ear detected the rustle of 
the paper as it was opened. A soundless pause was 
broken by a deep groan : 

“ O, my God ! ” 

Sob upon sob followed, drawn shudderingly from 
depths she could not fathom. It was gruesome eaves- 
dropping. She betook herself to the nursery to see 
that the children were all rig^lt for the night. As 
mother and neighbor she had no superior in decorous 
Freehold. 

Gerald was wide-awake, and sat up in his crib at 
her entrance. 

“ I say, mamma ! ” with a nervous gulp, “ it’s 
a dreadful thing to be dead, isn’t it ? I can’t sleep 
for thinking of it.” 

“ That is foolish and babyish, my man! It would 
be sensible and brave to go to sleep without worrying 
yourself over what cannot be helped.” 

She beat up and turned his pillow, and brought him 
a drink of water. His hands were hot, his eyes large 
and shining. 

“ I’m awfully sorry for Marion! ” trying to control 
the trembling pout his mother might call “ babyish.” 
“ She was always very nice and jolly with me. Isn’t 
Rex awfully cut up about it ?” 

“ My son! ” The judicious parent said it firmly, 
but not ungently, “Only silly people run the risk of 
making themselves ill and having nightmares by fret- 
ting over other people’s troubles. I want you to shut 
your eyes now and go to sleep like a good boy. 


88 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Think of something else. Let me tell you a secret, 
to be kept between you and me for awhile. Papa is 
thinking of buying a pony for you to ride — a horse 
of your very own! Gently! ” for he had thrown his 
arms about her neck. “ If you get weak and ill by 
lying awake o’ nights, you won’t be able to use him. 
Now, good-night ! Let me know, in the morning, 
what you mean to call the pony. 

“ There’s nothing Uke the expulsive^-power of a 
new idea,” she said, in a self-gratulatory tone, 
when on a second visit to the boy, an hour later, she 
saw him sleeping sweetly, a half smile on the rosy 
mouth. “ Tact is always better than discipline in the 
nursery.” 

A slight form hovered in the shaded corner of the 
piazza when she returned to the house of mourning. 
She feigned not to see it, but she repeated inwardly 
to her only confidante, “ How well she understands 
him! She knows he will come, and not before ten 
o’clock! He is nothing if not punctual.” Her hus- 
band and two doctors were smoking in the library, 
discussing the political situation indecorously-guarded 
tones. Men — and women — die every day, and rail- 
way casualties may be depended upon to keep the 
mortality rate at a steady average. The State sena- 
torial contest is to a new candidate an event. The 
nominee felt no abashment at sight of his wife beck- 
oning to him from the hall. She was a woman of 
the world, with fewer sentimental shams about her 
than any other of the sex he had ever met. That was 
one of his reasons for marrying her, and had much 
to do with his continued admiration. He came out 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


89 


to her at once, holding his cigar behind him. Isabel 
never interrupted him uselessly. Her beck had the 
authority of another’s call. 

“ Rex will be over in five minutes to see Marion,” 
she said, very low. “ Salome is watching for him 
and will show him upstairs. Will you close that 
door, that nobody may see him pass ? ” 

He nodded acquiescently. Then, because she was 
so pretty in the subdued falling light from the hall 
chandelier, or moved by this fresh evidence of her 
consideration for others’ comfort, he stooped and 
kissed her. 

“You are the best woman living, my pet! ” 

She shook her head with a bewitching little grim- 
ace, and as he went back to the library, glided into 
the darkened drawing-room and waited in a comfort- 
able lounging-chair for what would happen next. 

In the boding hush of the outer night, the crunch 
of slow steps on the gravel path were audible for two 
minutes or more before they fell on the piazza floor. 
From her well-chosen angle of observation, she saw 
the slight, dark shape meet the taller in the moon- 
lighted opening between the pillars. Not a word was 
spoken ; hands met in a long grasp, then the pair 
entered the hall and passed toward the stairs. The 
chandelier showed the step-son’s face to the watcher, 
and even her cool pulses were thrilled. Drawn, 
sharpened, livid, the sunken eyes set in dark rings, 
and bleared with tears and sleeplessness, it was older 
than his father’s, yet bore a hitherto unobserved re- 
semblance to it. That people should take life — or a 
death not their own — hard, was one of the enigmas 


90 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


of existence to the best woman living. She shook 
her head again, and more than once, as she followed, 
at a discreet interval, the mute pair up the stairs. 
One motion was of gratitude that Salome, and not 
she, was the chosen guide to the stillest room of the 
stilled mansion. 

That weak superstition did not enter into this 
thanksgiving was proved by the midnight visit she 
paid, alone, to the closed chamber. She was secure 
from observation, did she wish to weep alone in 
that dread solitude. Her husband was asleep on the 
parlor-sofa, and would not awake unless she sum- 
moned him to see his friend die. Mrs. Phelps and 
the family physician watched beside the unconscious 
patient. Salome, Paul and the servants were in bed. 
It was in keeping with her lord’s eulogium that the 
best of women should ascertain by personal observa- 
tion that all was decent and orderly in the appoint- 
ments she had directed for the accommodation of the 
dumb occupant of the large south room, known in 
the house as Marion Bayard’s. 

The night was very cold for the season. Sudden 
frostiness had driven back summer from the hill-tops, 
and the cold wave flooded the valley. The draught 
that met Mrs. Lupton on the threshold was more 
chill that out of doors. A strong east wind blew in 
at the window where Marion had knelt, her head in 
her friend’s lap, forty-eight hours ago. The shadows 
of the vine leaves on the carpet shivered in the blast. 
Mrs. Lupton went straight to a drawer and got out 
a shawl for her shoulders. Her next act was to 
smooth sundry wrinkles in the linen sheet that 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


yi 

draped the bed, and to plump up the mattress. Even 
these slight disorders offended her exquisite sense of 
neatness. She was a fastidious housewife. A slight 
indentation of the bed, and the creased sheet, showed 
where the heavy head of a kneeling man had rested. 
The fine texture of the linen clung so closely to that 
which it covered that the classic profile was clearly 
defined. The upper edge of the sheet was not per- 
fectly straight, reverently as it had been replaced 
after the hot, vain rain of Love’s kisses and tears 
had fallen on cheek, brow and lips. Love’s last look 
until the resurrection morning been given. The 
new-comer pictured the scene to herself while she 
rectified the trifling irregularities resulting from the 
hour-long visit of the lover. 

The gas had been but half-high when she came in; 
she had turned it on, putting out the sympathetic 
moonlight. Next, she locked the door, closed the 
shutters, and, opening a wardrobe, took down the 
gray travelling dress she had helped strip from the 
girl’s body. One breadth of the skirt was scorched, 
but the woollen fabric had not kindled fast. Most of 
the garment was intact, although blackened and 
stained. 

“ A violent death is non-assthetic,” thought the 
well-balanced brain, as the fingers touched the 
roughened, stiffened texture. 

Only a sense of duty kept her to the task. The 
burnt side of the gown was the left; the pocket was 
on the right, so cunningly masked by drapery and 
trimming that only a woman could have found it. A 
sheer handkerchief, with “ M. B.” worked in the cor- 


92 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


ner, came out first; then a vinaigrette, a card, and, 
under all the rest, was a letter. A somewhat large 
envelope, directed to Miss Bayard,” with no other 
address. It had been sealed, and cut open at one 
end — not quite evenly, but as if the scissors had 
wavered in haste or agitation. With the purposeful 
system that had marked each step in what was, evi- 
dently, the means to an end, the best woman living 
pulled out the double sheet of paper, and, after a 
glance at the handwriting, pushed Marion’s lounging- 
chair under the bracket-burner and seated herself for 
a deliberate perusal. A gleam of gratification 
crossed her visage at the first sentence. When alone 
with her one faithful counsellor, — her long-headed 
self, — she let her face speak. It said now that she 
had hardly dared hope to find so soon what she 
was sure existed somewhere. She read every word 
of the six closely written pages without further com- 
ment, uttered or looked. The chirography was ex- 
cellent, the light overhead shone directly upon it. 
Yet she read slowly, getting the sense of each 
word, the bearing of each sentence as she went 
along. 

Her hold upon herself was phenomenal, but, when 
she arose, her face was paler by many shades than 
when she sat down, — the clear pallor of intense and 
suppressed excitement, not the dusky blenching of 
fear or horror. The search was prosecuted no 
further. The handkerchief was restored, with card 
and vinaigrette, to the pocket, the defaced gown hung, 
with careful conspicuousness, on the middle peg of 
the armoire. Before turning the gas down, she folded 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


93 


back the sheet, and gazed for a full minute upon the 
face thus exposed. 

She was an omnivorous reader, and had a faithful 
memory. She recalled, now, that Celia Brooke in 
“ Middlemarch ” had seen ‘‘ something like the re- 
flection of a white, sunlit wing ” on Dorothea's face 
when Mr. Casaubon’s love-letter was brought to her. 
Involuntarily, the unimaginative Isabel glanced up- 
ward, as expecting to discover the source of the mys- 
terious radiance. 

“ They tell me she is very lovely as she sleeps 
to-night,” Mrs. Phelps had written. 

Her beauty was superhuman and indefinable. A 
faint, sweet, tender smile relaxed the curves of the 
mouth; the brow was pure and lofty as with the 
triumph of the ransomed ones who “ dwell forever in 
the light.” 

The gazer’s lineaments did not soften before the 
ineffable loveliness strangers could not regard for 
many minutes for fast-springing tears; in beholding 
which, Rex Lupton's heart had broken. Mrs. Lup- 
ton’s intent look was philosophical, and in no wise 
womanly, if to women be denied the power of im- 
personal analysis. 

“ You hated me from the first, poor girl! ” she said, 
half-aloud in her gentlest, most unfeeling tone. “ I 
see, now, how much reason you had to be afraid of 
me. Yet you never quailed when I looked at you. 
We were unequally matched. I, for example, would 
never have kept that letter — or answered it. You 
made a great mistake, child! ” 

The fixed sweetness of the smile, the pale glory of 


94 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


the brow, did not change. The majestic indifference 
of the dead to love or malice, — sublime serenity, that 
rests alike upon the faces of those who, in their life- 
time, had their good things, and of those who looked 
for a better country, even a heavenly, — the awful 
impartiality of death! these are what lend terror and 
might to the word, “ departed.” Living, the girl’s 
haughty spirit would have defied this woman’s guile ; 
would have resented, with imperious scorn, the sug- 
gestion of her compassion. Out of the body,, 
wherever that passionate, fearless spirit might be, it 
was impotent for defence or attack. That which it 
had parted from — the breathless, beautiful shape, laid 
in lily-white state, under the passionless eyes of her 
whom she had “hated! hated! hated!” — and the 
fairer than lily fame that had been more to her than 
mortal existence or the hope of salvation, — were 
equally at the mercy of the invader of her death- 
chamber. 

An added shade of seriousness was on the victor’s 
face, as she re-arranged the sheet, something in her 
eye that bespoke consciousness of other tasks to be 
done while the night lasted. She gave a pull to a chair 
here, a push there to a table, — the mechanical finish- 
ing touches of the born and educated housemistress, 
before lowering the gas and leaving the apartment. 
She locked the door noiselessly behind her, without 
removing the key. Outside another door on the same 
floor she halted, her delicate ear inclined toward it. 
A thin line of light showed beneath it and at one edge ; 
beyond was the sound of deep regurgitant respiration, 
hard, but as yet regular. There was then, no change 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


95 


in the wounded man’s condition. She measured 
the action of the hurt lungs, — noted, as a reassuring 
sign, the silence of doctor and nurse. Wifely solici- 
tude found nothing to arouse it in the dark drawing- 
room where she tarried for an instant. Her husband’s 
slumbers were profound for a politician. 

The library was unoccupied, the sofa there luxurious. 
It was a little before one o’clock ; no decided varia- 
tion in the patient’s symptoms was likely to occur 
until three — the ebb-tide of the ocean of, human life, 
when, all the world over, pulses and spirits run lowest. 
She locked herself in, naturally, being both modest 
and timid. The doctor, or a burglar, or perhaps the 
faithful butler, a family servant, might prowl through 
the house and enter her sanctum while she slept. A 
couple of pillows, piled at the head of the lounge, an 
afghan tossed across the foot, were seemly provision 
for such light refreshment in sleep as she might 
snatch against the time of need. She stretched her- 
self on the improvised couch, without extinguishing 
the gas ; clasped her hands at the back of her head, 
rested a pair of great luminous eyes on the opposite 
wall, and thought hard for ten minutes. One of her 
boasts was that she could fall asleep without delay, 
or keep awake without discomfort, when she willed. 

There were no tired, down-dropping lines in her 
countenance when, at the stroke of one from the 
mantel-clock, she leisurely arose. It would seem as 
if her brief resting-spell was as much a part of a plan 
as the directness with which she proceeded to ransack 
drawers and rifle pigeon-holes. She wrought deftly, 
rather steadily than fast, with alert eyes and intent ex- 


96 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


pression. Every envelope was opened, the contents 
were glanced at, not read, — then it was returned duly 
to its position ; each stray scrap of written paper was 
keenly scrutinized. 

Half-past two saw her at the end of the quest. 
Any one entering at that moment would have sup- 
posed that she had sprung from the lounge to open 
the door, leaving the crushed pillows and disordered 
covering as they were, without staying to adjust them, 
in her haste to hear tidings from the sick-room. Wide- 
awake, speculative, dissatisfied, — she stood in the 
middle of the floor, and looked absently about her. 
Her eyes sparkled into liveliness in falling upon a 
waste-paper basket thrust under a table at the back 
of the room, and crammed with papers. 

In a twinkling, she drew it out, dragged it under 
the drop-light, and sat down upon the carpet beside 
it. A few inches from the top, she lighted upon a 
minute fragment of note-paper, twisted as it was torn, 
with ragged edges. Smoothing it out, she saw that it 
bore one word in pencil, “ the'' Laying it on the desk 
she resumed her task, letting nothing elude eyes and 
Angers. It took half an hour to collect the bits, all 
small, some blank, all wrinkled by the twist and wrench 
of nervous fingers. She Atted them into one another, 
after restoring the rest of the waste-paper to the 
basket. It was a nice and critical piece of mosaic. 
With no show of impatience at the enforced tedious- 
ness of the operation she washed the surface of a 
blank sheet with mucilage, a bottle of which stood on 
the desk, and stuck each fragment into place with the 
precision of a type-setter. While they dried she got 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


97 


pen and ink, not to lose precious time, and made a 
faithful transcript in bold, black characters, of the 
letter she had abstracted from the dead girl's pocket. 
She wrote rapidly, and legibly, and was used to copy- 
ing documents, and writing business letters from her 
husband’s dictation. The task done, she helped 
herself to a large envelope from the table-drawer, 
enclosed the scrap-work note and the letter, and 
pocketed them with the original of the epistle. 

Four o’clock had struck ; the robins were singing 
in the elms, the sparrows making up beds and serving 
nursery breakfasts in the honeysuckles clambering 
about the upper windows, as she wrote the last word. 
She turned out the lights, unbarred the shutters, and 
bathed her eyes in the dewy dawn. Two wakeful 
nights and a long busy day had tired even her in- 
domitable head, but she enjoyed the novel aspect of 
a just awakening world ; the deepening blush of the 
east, the sympathetic tint of the west, the freshness, 
fragrance and newness of a day as yet untouched by 
man’s traffic and strife. She had a fine appreciation 
of natural beauties, and was glad of the chance of 
getting a glimpse of another phase. Then, she threw 
herself upon the couch she had occupied earlier in 
the night and with the matins of bird and bee in her 
ears fell into repose, enjoying three hours of such 
rest as sits balmily upon the lids of just women made 
perfect by approving consciences and easy stomachs. 

The seams of the sods on Marion Bayard’s grave 
were joining under July suns and showers ; the long 
unconsciousness that had drowned the senses of 
Richard Phelps was yielding, by almost imperceptible 


98 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


degrees, to the persistent force of the matchless con- 
stitution which knit bones, healed torn flesh and 
battled with the Apollyon of fever, while friends and 
physicians watched for the final scene, — when the 
best of women said quietly and kindly to the wife 
who had nearly been a widow, — 

“ Here is the key of Marion’s room. I locked it 
the day she was taken away. She left her drawers and 
closets in perfect order, and I did not unpack her 
trunk. I think she would not have wished any hands 
but yours to touch her clothing and papers. In the 
drawer of her dressing-table you will find a long, buff 
envelope, marked in my handwriting with the date 
of the accident. Before sending the ruined travelling- 
dress away (it was a frightful object !) I emptied the 
pocket of a handkerchief, a vinaigrette, a card and an 
envelope that felt as if there were several letters in it. 
I sealed them all up together and put them in the 
drawer, thinking you might examine them when 
you felt able. I do not imagine there is anything of 
importance among these trifles, but I thought it best 
to be business-like.” 

Mrs. Phelps had grown thin and pale with grief 
and vigils. A few silver threads gleamed in her 
abundant hair. Her mourning-gown was of extreme 
simplicity, as befitted one whose business was nursing. 
The two matrons sat on the piazza, as on the after- 
noon of our introduction to them, six weeks before, 
and the sun was near his setting behind the waving 
line of hills. Salome, from her place on the steps, 
with a book on her knees, saw her mother’s eyes take 
on a far, wistful look, her chin tremble. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


99 


My angel-girl ! ” she breathed softly, and seemed 
to dream through the ensuing pause. 

Salome was used to the peculiar expression and 
air with which, she always spoke or heard Marion’s 
name — wondered reverently, if the friends whose 
souls were so closely knit together in life were indeed 
still in communion with one another. 

Mrs. Phelps aroused herself presently ; put out her 
hand to her neighbor with a smile ; spoke with the 
full, cordial tone, freighted with good-will that was less 
habitual with her in these late sad days than of old : 

“ How can I thank you for your delicacy — your 
thoughtfulness — for all your abundant goodness ? I 
bless you in Marion’s name and mine. I told Rich- 
ard the whole truth yesterday. It had dawned upon 
him gradually and partially as he regained conscious- 
ness. He noticed, first, that he never saw her, or 
heard her speak ; then, that no one mentioned her. 
Little by little, the poor, shaken brain pieced the 
story together, until, yesterday morning, he said to 
me — ‘ Darling ! was Marion fatally hurt ? ’ I an- 
swered him truthfully, as the doctors had advised." 

Was he much overcome ? " asked Mrs. Lupton, 
in sincere sympathy. 

“ He covered his face with his hands, and turning 
his cheek to the pillow, lay still for a little while. 
Then, hearing the sobs I could not repress, he looked 
at me, his eyes full of tears. All he said was — ‘ My 
poor wife ! ’ His first thought was of me ! And to 
think how nearly I had lost him too ! " 

Her voice faltered ; the tears rushed forth. She 
arose and went into the house. 


CHAPTER VI. 


T he season at Martin’s had not opened, only 
begun to show signs of budding. 

Martin’s bears another name now. At the date of 
this chapter, it was the key of the Lower Saranac ; a 
long, ugly, white house, cheaply built and plainly 
furnished. In the broad archway separating main 
building and right wing was set a view of blue water, 
and forest, and dappled azure-and-snow sky that 
elicited an exclamation of pleasure from one of the 
occupants of a buck-wagon driven down the stage- 
road on an afternoon in early May, i88 — . 

“ Jolly picture — isn’t it?” said a pale lad of four- 
teen to the tall man who held the reins. “ And ” — 
with an audible respiration — “ how fresh the air 
tastes ! ” 

“It is the best in the world ! ” answered the other. 
“ It will make a new man of you in a few days. How 
do you do, Mr. Martin ! ” to the stalwart hotel-keeper 
and ex-guide, as he emerged from the side-door. 

Stepping to the ground as he spoke, the traveller 
helped the boy down carefully. 

“ This is my brother. Master Gerald Lupton. He 
has had typhoid fever, and I have brought him to the 
woods to be made strong and well again.” 

“ No better place, Mr. Lupton. No better place! 
I got your letter yesterday, and your rooms are ready. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


lOI 


Will you register before you go up ? ” turning into 
the office. 

Let me do it, Rex ! ” cried Gerald, eag'erly. 

He hurried to the counter, his ankles overJjipping 
one another weakly. His brother’s eyes lingered 
compassionately upon the fingers that could not hold 
a steady pen. 

“ The business-man of the firm — eh ? ” said the 
host, humoring the situation. 

“ Yes ! ” 

The quiet reserve that distinguished his bearing 
toward the hotel-keeper from his manner to the inva- 
lid, yielded slightly to the smile accompanying the 
affirmative. But the smile was a grave one, and was 
gone entirely as, preceding Gerald and following the 
porter with the luggage, he mounted the uncarpeted 
stairs. 

“ Who is he ? ” asked a loiterer of a guide, also a 
loiterer. There were not twenty guests in the house, 
and each arrival was an event. 

“Young Lupton ’o Freehold, Massachusetts-way. 
Middlir^ rich *n’ thunderin’ proud. ’S been here f’ 
four year now, f’ a week ’r two every summer. Cool, 
quiet feller, ’n’ powerful unsocierbul. Ketches quite 
some fish though, ’n’ Moody, ’s guide, dooz say ’show 
he ain't so allfired stiff ’s he looks. Ole man, he died, 
couple o’ years back, ’n’ lef’ a big family ’n’ this son 
guardeen to th’ youngsters. Boy’s one on ’em, seems. 
Kinder peakin-like, but we’re use’ to seein’ ’em come 
in, that shape, up here.” 

Had the brothers glanced back at the turn of the 
stairs, they might have seen a lady walking up the 


102 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


slight incline leading from the hotel to the water’s 
edge. Pausing on the threshold of the office to 
wave her hand to her late oarsman, a slender youth 
who wf*s pulling boldly back up the lake, she caught 
the; words, “ Freehold, Massachusetts.” With a bow 
"and smile to loiterers and host, she passed on to the 
counter to examine the register. 

“ Some new arrivals ! ” observed Mr. Martin, com- 
placently. 

“ So I see ! ” 

She turned a leaf — another — three or four together, 
her face bent low over the book. 

“ How’s things at the camp gittin’ on ? Break, to- 
morrow, don’t they ? ” 

“ Yes, and go on up to Amperzand.” 

Tone and smile were mechanical. She had reached 
the stair-foot when the voice of the host arrested her. 

“ Mrs. Phelps ! you’ve left your bag ! ” 

She had laid down a reticule from which protruded 
long, ivory knitting-needles, while inspecting the 
register. The light from the door showed her feat- 
ures distinctly as she received it from Mr. Martin’s 
hand. She was very pale, the smile that thanked him 
was a forced gleam. 

“You look clean tuckered out ! ” remarked the ex- 
guide. “ Wouldn’t you like to have a drop o’ tea sent 
up to your room? The sun’s been too much for you, I 
guess. That boy o’ yourn had oughter take better 
care o’ you.” 

He accounted her “ a real born lady.” She handled 
an oar as well as her son, and caught as many trout 
as her husband, with whom angling was a passion. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


103 


She had made friends with the women in the cabins, 
and knew the names of all the children. The region 
had brightened with her coming. 

“You are very good, Mr. Martin! I need nothing 
but rest, thank you. The sun is hot for the season.” 

The stairs rose to meet her as she climbed them ; 
the long, narrow passages billowed under her feet ; 
her hand shook violently in fitting the key in her bed- 
room door. A rocking-chair stood by the window 
overlooking the lake. She sank into it and leaned 
her sick head against the wall, eyes closed and one 
limp hand dropped across the other in her lap. 

The Phelpses had gone abroad in the August suc- 
ceeding the railway accident. The great house on 
the hill had remained shut up ever since. For six 
years the family had sojourned in foreign lands, 
wintering in Algiers, Nice, Mentone, — whenever was 
promise of healing to the torn lungs and tonic for the 
nervous system. The party had been in the Adiron- 
dacks since the middle of April. Richard called him- 
self well, but “ meant to take the crude American 
climate by degrees.” The Luptons knew of their 
landing in New York. The design of visiting the 
Lakes was suddenly formed and acted upon, and not 
communicated to them. Richard was an irregular 
correspondent always, and his wife seldom wrote to 
any one in Freehold. The ocean that had divided 
her from the fair inland town for all these years was 
but a type of the complete separateness of her present 
life from the careless security of existence between 
the blue hills which guarded it from the busier world. 

In the semi-swoon that overtook her when safe 


104 


A GALLAJV7' FIGHT, 


from observation, she was again on the columned 
portico, the river-breeze blowing over her face. The 
birds were chirping in the wistaria-branches ; Salome 
and Paul playing croquet on the lawn ; Rex Lupton 
was crossing the sun-warmed turf toward her, and 
Marion was singing low to herself in her chamber 
overhead. She tried to call the girl, to let her know 
of her lover’s coming, and the effort brought the 
agony of recovered consciousness. 

“ Rex ! Rex ! Rex ! ” 

This in a whispered groan, and then: “ How can I 
meet him ? how can I ? ” 

The doughty “ business-man of the firm ” of bro- 
thers “ thought he would stretch his legs on the bed 
for a minute and three-quarters.” 

“ While you unpack your frills, you know,” he said 
drowsily from the pillow. 

With an amused, pitying gleam in his eyes, Rex 
laid a railway rug over the lax limbs of the sleeper, 
five minutes later. The boy had grown fast during 
his long illness ; the pretty face was elfish in angles, 
and in precocity of intelligence. The pair had dined 
and rested for two hours at a wayside inn, but Ger- 
ald was, as he would have put it, “ knocked out of 
time,” by now. Postponing the unpacking of the 
“ frills ” to a more convenient season, Rex shut trunk 
and satchel, barred the shutters to temper the glare 
from the lake, and left the sleeper to the profound en- 
joyment of his “ stretch.” 

The strait lanes of dormitory-passages were uncar- 
peted as yet, and his heels aroused sharply insistent 
echoes, rebounding from closed doors and dead walls 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


lOS 

to lose themselves in cross-entries and up bare stairs. 
For all sign of human life astir in the upper stories, 
he and Gerald might be the only tenants of the cara- 
vanserai. A guide or two hung about the office; two 
old ladies rocked themselves on the piazza to a see- 
sawy accompaniment of gossip, delivered in humidly- 
husky tones ; a pug-dog lay asleep on a mat beside 
them. The wooden pier, extending along the water’s 
edge, was deserted ; a dozen blue boats of the rakish 
Adirondack build were drawn up on the bank, like so 
many lazy marines, dabbling their toes in the ripple 
tossed inland by the breeze. Rex strolled along and 
off the plank walk into the grove beyond. 

Warm puffs of balsamic breath met him before he 
gained the shadow of the outermost trees. The van- 
dalism of “ lumbering,” that has robbed the northern 
forests of deciduous growth, has granted beneficent 
sweep to the health-bearing fragrance given out by the 
coniferous woods. A crooked pathway twisted among 
the resin-whitened boles ; the foot sank in a carpet 
woven of the fallen brown needles of centuries ; the 
air was fraught with solace for tired nerves and la- 
boring respiratory organs. Rustic seats were built 
against trunks and laid upon stumps, and Rex took 
possession of one, stretching out his long legs with a 
sigh like that with which his small brother had re- 
signed himself to sleep. 

He had altered as much as Gerald in six years. 
Care and thought had chiselled his features into more 
delicate outlines ; the responsibilities of manager and 
guardian had given decision to carriage and speech. 
The English cut of his beard made his face seem 


lo6 A GALLANT FIGHT. 

longer and thinner than it really was; the neatly 
trimmed moustache drooped at the corners of a firm, 
well-cut mouth ; in his brown eyes lurked sadness and 
longings the tongue never told. As he leaned back 
on the rough bench, his head against the tree behind 
him, and gazed lakeward, twenty people w^ould have 
seen, in passing, only a well-dressed, gentlemanly 
young fellow, taking his ease where ease-taking was 
the fashion. The twenty-first would have turned for 
a second and more intent look ; remembered face and 
attitude afterward with the indefinite expectation of 
learning something more of him, some day ; would 
have said, “ He has a history, past or to come," and 
the one-and-twentieth person would have been a 
woman. 

The balsam-fir has a murmur of its own when a 
breath of air is stirring, lighter than the legato thren- 
ody of the pine, and brisker in measure, — music that 
runs in cadenzas from one bough to another, and is, 
in a faint breeze, hardly more than a sibilant tremolo. 
In the deeper heart of the grove where Rex Lupton 
sat, the stiff twigs did not move, yet the whispering 
went on overhead ; the freshening waves of resinous 
sweetness seemed to come from gently-jarred censers. 
The lap of the water on the bank, the swishing gur- 
gle with which it fell back, supplied the lower notes in 
the May-day opus. The boughs had been trimmed 
so as to leave each tree-bole bare for six or eight 
feet from the ground, allowing air and light free en- 
trance. Through these openings the gazer saw a 
series of cabinet-pictures of wooded shore and island, 
and purple kingly heads reared against skies of melt- 


A GALLAiVT FIGHT. 


ing blue ; of a lake like a sapphire for clearness of 
color, with pearly and opaline reflections from cloud- 
lets far up in the zenith. 

“ Take care ! Don’t move as you value your 
life ! ” 

Rex thought he must have fallen asleep, so start- 
ling was the interruption of his reverie. The voice 
was a woman’s, and, surprised as he was, he had the 
presence of mind to recognize something familiar in 
it. Instinct, rather than thought, held him perfectly 
still for the second in which he believed the admoni- 
tion to be addressed to him. The next sentence un- 
deceived him : 

“ Don’t breathe if you can help it ! Laughter 
would be rank blasphemy. I am just getting the 
loveliest polish on your finger-nails ! ” 

The unseen auditor pulled himself to an upright 
sitting posture, and espied on the other side of a clump 
of shrubs, four or five yards away, two girls. The 
back of one was toward him ; she held a sketch-book 
on her knee, and was painting with the free motion of 
a skilled artist. An open color-box and glass of 
water were on a stump at her elbow. Her companion 
sat on the ground in profile to the young man. Like 
the sketcher, she wore the woodland costume of navy- 
blue flannel, in her case fitted over the body of a 
very fat young woman. Her chin was a double roll, 
into which the rosy cheeks sank with never a break of 
shadow or cross-line. Bust and shoulders were divi- 
ded from what should have been a graceful neck by a' 
deep crease ; her sleeves were like full bags, folded 
once at the elbow ; her feet, clad in tennis-shoes. 


lo8 A GALLANT FIGHT, 

Stuck out straight in front of her. Her expression 
was pleasing and intelligent ; her masses of blonde 
hair, delicate features, and lively blue eyes would have 
won her the title of beauty but for the redundance of 
adipose tissue. That she should sit for her likeness, 
and in such an attitude, was ridiculous. That a friend 
should make a picture of her in the merry mood in- 
dicated by her talk, was nothing short of unkind- 
ness. 

“ Once upon a time," — resumed the artist, with an 
original punctuation-system, regulated by dabs and 
sweeps of the wet brush , — ^^Ages ago ! When I could 
not have been. Much more than. Ten or eleven years 
old. I browsed. As freely in my father’s library as 
Mary’s little lamb. In the school-house yard. While 
he ‘lingered near’. And I read a story. A trashy thing 
in a trashy magazine. Of a young painter. One of the 
prodigies that have had no instruction. And revel in 
the misfortune. Who made fame. fortune. By ex- 
hibiting his first picture called “The Maiden’s Hand.’’ 
His Dulcinea. A bond-girl, who swept floors and 
churned. And washed dishes, without a mop. Shared 
fortune, and didn’t care for fame. Probably, the 
cleverest stroke in my sketch’’ — brush suspended in 
the air, and head on one side to admire the effect — 
“ is that slant of sunlight on your ring-finger. If you 
had worn anything but that big ruby set in diamonds 
I .should have lost the one ray of warmth in my study 
in green-and-white. No! don’t look at your hand! 
The human frame is so nicely adjusted that one can- 
not turn the head with affecting the equilibrium of 
every nerve, the tension of every muscle.’’ 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


She worked on in silence for several minutes, 
was, doubtless, in a similar pause that the eavesdropper 
had gained his retreat without seeing or hearing the 
couple, himself unobserved. Were he to withdraw 
now, a rustling bough or cracking twig would certainly 
betray him, yet he ran the risk of greater embarrass- 
ment by remaining. When the sketcher should begin 
to speak again, he would escape with as little noise as 
possible. No harm could come from looking, mean- 
while, at the fat model and at the turn of the painter’s 
neck and arm. 

She was rather above the middle height, round and 
supple in figure ; her head sat well upon her neck, 
her brown hair — almost black in the shade — had 
golden-red streaks running over and hiding in the 
ripples where the sun kissed it. Her hands were 
brown and slender and looked strong. Her voice was 
fresh and pure, her enunciation remarkable distinct, 
and the impression of familiarity with its intonations 
grew upon him as he listened. She could not be a 
Southerner, for she honored each vowel, and slurred 
no two words into one, yet the lingering downward 
cadence on the final words of some sentences, and 
the quality of tone, were not Northern. He perceived 
now her subject to be the exceedingly pretty hand of 
her companion, sunken lightly in the rich green 
mos.ses of a low stump at the fat girl’s side. The blue 
flannel sleeve was rolled back, displaying a white round 
wrist, sm^er than one might have expected from the 
dumpy The easy pose of the pink-tipped fingers, 
the curve of the wrist, the trail of a small-leaved vine 
across the mossy cushion, were artistically arranged. 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


“ You are a model of patience, and a patient 
model,” began the voice again, “just a dozen strokes 
more, my dear, and I will release you. If your 
mother likes the picture, I shall do myself. The great 
pleasure. Of making a copy in oils and sending it to 
her on her next birthday. Basta ! A thousand 
thanks !•” 

She stepped forward to give a hand to the sitter, 
who, cramped by remaining so long in one position, 
made a futile scramble to rise. The artist’s skirt 
touched the tumbler of water. It struck, capsized, 
and deluged the color box. With instinctive gal- 
lantry Rex sprang to the rescue paint-tubes and 
pans bestrewed the loose fir-needles ; all were wet, and 
the finger-tips of the trio were bedaubed in gathering 
them up. 

“ Warranted moist colors ! ” laughed the owner, 
blushing rosily, in receiving them from the stranger’s 
hand. “ You are very kind, and I was inexcusably 
clumsy. That is the last, I am sure, thank you ! I 
beg that you will not give yourself further trouble! ” 

She said “ tr-o-u-ble,” with a falling inflection on the 
first syllable. Raising her eyes to his face, a change 
passed over hers, her eyes dilated in childlike amaze- 
ment, her blush was more vivid. 

“Oh! are you — I beg your pardon — but I fancy 
that I recognize in you an acquaintance — a very old 
friend ! Are you not Mr. Reginald Lupton ? ” 

Rex bowed low, and stood with his hat i^^is hand, 
puzzled and pleased. 

“ That is my name, certainly! And — you ?’’ 

“ I knew it ! I knew you at once,” an agitated 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


wave of delight breaking up the accents she woulu 
have had merely cordial. “ Have you forgotten 
Salome Phelps ? ” 

The begrimed hands met in a hearty clasp ; the 
brown eyes searched the dark-gray orbs and happy 
face for likeness of the immature girl who had wept in 
his arms at their parting six years before. 

“ I know now that your voice reminded me of your 
mother’s. She is with you, of course?” 

“Yes; that is, she and I are staying at the hotel 
while my father and brother are in camp about ten 
miles up the lake. She went up this morning to spend 
the day with them, and will be back this evening, 
Anna ! Miss Marcy ! I want you to know the best 
friend a little girl ever had — Mr. Lupton — whom I 
have not seen since I was a little girl.” 

Miss Marcy showed the tact of a genuine lady in 
busying herself with arranging paints and brushes in 
the box, while the old acquaintances seated them- 
selves on a bench hard by for a catechetical talk. She 
wandered away presently, by degrees, reappearing 
with a tumbler of clean water in which she invited 
Salome to dip her fingers, producing a clean pocket- 
handkerchief for drying them. The improvised finger- 
bowl and napkin were then offered to Rex. 

“ You know the old superstition about washing 
hands in the same basin ? ” he said, rising to accept 
the service. 

“ I’ll risk it ! ” smiled Salome. “ If we quarrel, it 
will be for the first time. How good you used to be 
to the graceless hoyden I know myself to have been!” 

‘ Never graceless or hoydenish. Your mother’s 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


aaughter could not be either. Has she changed in 
appearance or manner ? " 

No — unless that she has grown handsomer and 
dearer and more charming every day. Ask Miss 
Marcy if she is not all that I say — and more. She 
has a bewitching mother of her. own, and can the 
better judge of mine.” 

“ I have never met a lovelier woman than Mrs. 
Phelps,” Miss Marcy said with evident sincerity. 

Her voice was sweet; her animated face and cordial 
self-possession made one wish she were seven or 
eight stone lighter. 

If you once knew her well, you do not need my 
testimony to that effect,” she went on to Rex, willing 
to improve the acquaintanceship. 

There was a time when I knew no one better.” 

The instant gravity of tone and countenance, the 
slight bend of the uncovered head, were tributes to a 
venerated past of which one auditor was, presumably, 
ignorant, and of which the other could not speak. 
To cover the trifling embarrassment, Salome put a 
question : 

“ Is your mother — Mrs. Lupton — as beautiful as 
ever ? ” 

If the adjective were ever applicable to her, it is 
still. She is plumper, perhaps, but looks the better 
for it. There is little alteration in other respects.” 

“ I used to think her the embodiment of gracious- 
ness and beauty ! ” Salome linked her hands on her 
knee and gazed retrospectively at the horizon. “ Many 
a time I have pretended to be absorbed in a book, 
sitting at an an^le that 'kept me out of her eye-range 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


113 

and her within mine, for the pure pleasure of staring 
at her, unrebuked. And her voice! It was liquid 
melody, like the run of a warm, brown brook over 
smooth sand. Oh, you needn’t laugh, Anna ! You 
will grow poetic or bathetic (why not ‘ bathetic ’ as 
well as ‘ pathetic’ ?) when you meet her.” 

“ I have had that pleasure,” rejoined Miss 
Marcy, unexpectedly. “ I spent a few days in 
Freehold, three years ago this summer. My cousin 
lives there. I was introduced to Mrs. Lupton at a 
pic-nic.” 

“ Have you visited every inch of the habitable 
globe? ” demanded Salome, with humorous vexation. 
“ She should be exhibited as a prize specimen of the 
Viatrix Americana^ Mr. Lupton. We found her first 
on the Mer de Glace^ just half-way across, chatting 
comfortably with one guide in German and another 
in French, and nibbling black bread and Swiss cheese 
on the edge of a crevasse that gaped all the way down 
to Hoang Ho. We were travelling-companions for 
three months and have been friends ever since. For 
four days we have been inseparable here, where there 
is nobody but ourselves to talk with, and she has 
never intimated to me that she ever so much as heard 
of Freehold! ” 

“ Because we have been so busy talking of other 
things,” Miss Marcy pleaded. “ And I know compar- 
atively little of the place from personal observation. 
My favorite cousin married Rev. Rufus Lee of the 
North Hill church, Mr. Lupton. You may have met 
him ? ” 

“ I have, once or twice. I know him well by repu- 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


I14 

tation, of course. I hope you liked us well enough to 
repeat your visit ? " 

Salome took up the word : 

“ She is coming to pay me a long visit as soon as 
we are settled ! She doesn’t know it, but it is a fixed 
fact. I haven’t had time to tell you, Mr. Lupton, that 
papa has quite made up his mind to go into pernianent 
quarters under his ancestral roof-tree as soon as the 
place can be made ready for us. Paul enters Yale in 
October. That is one of our reasons for settling again 
in New England. Mamma looks a little dubious 
when the possible effect of the climate upon papa’s 
newly-regained health is discussed, but we all guess 
what her choice would be. She always liked Freehold. 
I recollect it as fairer than Damascus. It is the Eden 
of my dreams of by-gone days.” 

“ I am very glad to hear this ! ” said Rex, earnestly. 
“ I shall dare to look at the old house again as I pass 
by. The closed doors and shutters have given it a 
blank, melancholy air inexpressibly mournful. Isabel 
says it reminds her of blind Bartimeus calling for 
mercy at the wayside.” 

That sounds like her ! How you would revel in 
her society, Anna ! She says the most original things 
in the quietest tone, yet as nobody else could.” 

Her determination to include her friend within 
their conversational bounds was amiable and well- 
bred. 

Perceiving it, Rex seconded her. 

“ Miss Phelps naturally views Freehold and Free- 
hold people through rose-colored glasses,” he said. 
“ Do you recollect—” to Salome— telling me once 


A GALLANT FIGHT. I15 

that you ‘ regarded our valley with reverence as the 
cradle of your race ? ’ ” 

“ Did I ever say anything so melodramatic ? I have 
the grace to blush for it now, as for my absurd pride 
in the antiquity of that same race of worthy farmers. 
One learns, in really ancient lands, to regard as 
modern anything under five centuries old. A pedi- 
gree that can be definitely traced but a hundred-and- 
fifty years back, is no more respectable in point of age 
than a mushroom.” 

Her gay, girlish rattle had a singular charm for the 
serious man who had no skill in badinage, and with 
whom few were tempted to use it. Isabel amused him, 
but her pleasantries had always a smack of quassia 
and cloves. Since Marion’s death, he had mingled so 
little in general society as not to know how most 
women talk. At the solicitation of his step-mother 
he had gone to several parties within the past year. 
Freehold girls vowed that his stately courtesy made 
them as uncomfortable as the far-off eyes and faint 
smile that brought to mind the hill-side grave, where 
the flowers were never allowed to fade. The most 
audacious belle of the season, signalized by what she 
styled “the resurrection of His Royal Highness,” 
put on record the saying that she “ would as lief flirt 
with Miss Bayard’s memorial-pillar, as with her 
widower.” 

He looked like neither grave-stone nor widower, in 
replying to Salome’s last sally: 

“ In Freehold, that would be treason.” 

“ As would many other innocent remarks,” broke in 
Miss Marcy. “From what I have seen and heard of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


1 16 

town and people, I should say that the community is 
sufficient unto itself in morals, manners and traditions/' 

“Anna ! you horrify me ! " 

Salome’s ringing laugh dispelled Rex’s impulse of 
annoyance, almost before he confessed it l^o himself. 

“ We must teach her reverence for the oldest and 
prettiest town in the great Connecticut Valley,” con- 
tinued the girl, her face alive with fun. “ She is from 
Cincinnati, one of those preposterously overgrown 
and aggressively-alive places that demoralize just taste 
for a snug, neat village-city, with a stout binding of 
insular prejudice all around it, — a sort of Lucy-Lock- 
ett’s-pocket affair. She will like us as we deserve 
to be liked when she has spent a month or two in 
Eden. Don’t zve attend the North Hill Church, Mr. 
Lupton ? ” 

“ I am afraid not ! ” smiling at the form of the 
query. “The Phelps pew is in what is known as the 
West Side Church. There is a story to the effect 
that your great-grandfather led a colony of disaf- 
fected parishioners into secession from the “Old 
North Hill.” The West Side has the reputation of 
being more aristocratic than the Mother-fold.” 

He checked himself, recollecting Miss Marcy’s re- 
lations to the pastor. 

“ An’ not nigh s’ sound in p’int o’ doctrine ! ” she 
interposed with nasal unction. “ More worldly, every 
way ! But no richer, mind you ! If you count up 
’n’ down aour middle aisle, you’ll find youself well 
up int' th’ millions. Th’ ole North Hill holds its own, 
middlin’ well, Mr. Lupton ! ” 

“ Sacrilege ! ‘tolerable, and not to be endured ! ’ ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 1 17 

cried Salome, between soft bursts of laughter. “ You 
shall not caricature my neighbors, nor make me 
ashamed of the fact that my forbears were Free- 
holders, born and bred. My father has become some- 
what cosmopolitanized by six years of exile, but he is 
staunch in his allegiance to his native State. What 
American does not glory in Massachusetts? The 
Springfield Republican has followed him over the 
world. He says it flavored his father’s cup of coffee 
every morning from the day of its first issue, and that 
there is something amiss in the mental and physical 
constitution of the Connecticut Valley man who can 
get through the day without it. I am very vain of 
my Yankee blood.” 

“ Massachusetts, Freehold, the Springfield Republi- 
can — or Cincinnati — might be proud of you, true, gal- 
lant soul ! ” Miss Marcy laid the back of the hand 
which was her chief beauty caressingly against the 
smooth brunette cheek. Mr. Lupton, if I was rude, 
I beg your pardon ! ” 

He arose and bowed. 

“ Reassure yourself, Miss Marcy ! If apology is 
due, it is from me, not from you.” 

The red light thrown upon his face, as he arose, 
drew all eyes to the western heavens. 

“ We make a specialty of sunsets and moonrises in 
the Adirondacks,” said Salome. “ The exhibition this 
evening will be especially fine in honor of the latest 
arrivals. The best place for seeing it is from the pier.” 

They went back together, hurrying a little until 
they cleared the grove ; then, sauntering fitfully, paus- 
ing every few steps to enjoy the illumination. 

The farthest mountains were deep-purple, with dis- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


1 18 

tinct orange lines conventionalizing them against the 
burning sky. Golden rivers cleft the nearer green 
hills; every jutting rock and topmost bough was 
gilded, and cast ruddy shadows ; the lake was 
banded with scarlet-and-gold, as Lake Leman and 
the Adriatic are cressed by the cooler prismatic tints. 
The ugly caravanserai sprawling along the bank was 
washed with purest pink ; the flat, bare windows were 
quivering topazes, blazing back intolerable reflections 
of the flooding glory. 

“ Why ! there is mamma ! " ejaculated Salome, 
quickening her pace. “ How did it happen that we 
did not see her boat pass ? ” 

She stood on the piazza, awaiting them. Her 
gown was the white woollen stuff her husband liked 
to have her wear ; every down-dropping fold of 
drapery was defined and suffused warmly by the 
western fires. Rex could have believed that but a 
night and a day had elapsed since he and Marion saw 
her standing thus, between the vine-wreathed pillars, 
as they drove up the hill for the last time. 

“ Mamma ! ” her daughter ran forward to say ; 
“ Whom do you think we have brought with us ? Do 
you know him t ” 

The lady’s voice was steady and full as of yore ; 
the hand Rex — pale to the lips, and speechless — en- 
folded in both of his, did not shake ; her look, if 
grave, was sweet. She could not meet him gayly, 
recollecting, as both did, the date and circumstances 
of their farewell, but her eyes were clear and kind. 

“ I should have known him anywhere and always. 
My dear Rex ! you have given us a delightful sur. 
prise ! " 


CHAPTER VII. 



WEEK after the Luptons’ arrival at Saranac 


ii. Lake House, a party of six, including the guide, 
set out in a long-bodied, stout-springed “ sundown,” 
for an excursion to North Elba. Mrs. Marcy, as a 
confirmed invalid, could not undertake the jaunt, but 
insisted that her daughter should leave her for the 
day. Anna and Mrs. Phelps were on the middle seat, 
Gerald by the gi^de whom he regarded as his pecu- 
liar property. That Rex should be paired off with 
Salome was inevitable, and, the back seat over the 
wheel, being adjudged by the daughter as too rough 
for her mother, was the only one left to them. As 
the young man swung himself up after her, and set- 
tled the linen dust-robe over her lap, he thought the 
arrangement as agreeable as it had seemed con- 
venient. 

He liked the girl, who was nine years his junior, as 
men count time, and, in reality, thirty years younger. 
She was clever, affectionate, sincere, piquante, comely, 
— a goodly representative of the finest type of Amer- 
ican womanhood. Yet the catalogued recommenda- 
tions to the admiration of a reasonable man did not 
define what was her principal charm in his eyes. He 
had felt it at their first meeting in the grove, and it 
had grown upon him with every succeeding day. He 
believed it to be the likeness to the mother she idol- 


I 20 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


ized — the friend he had loved and lost — and would 
never find again. 

It would not have surprised him, with his expe- 
rience of life’s disappointments and changes, had the 
ideal he had cherished so long under the guise of this 
noble, tender matron, been shattered at their re- 
union. The years that had wrought the heart-broken 
boy into the steadfast man must have left their mark 
on her. Had she proved, to his cleared vision, a com- 
mon-pla^e, elderly dame, excellent in her way, and 
the way of fifty other good and educated wives and 
mothers, he would have been sorry, but in no wise 
shocked. She was all he remembered and believed 
her to be, and superadded was a qalmer dignity of 
speech, gentler grace of thought and deed for others, 
that heightened respect, and would have quickened 
affection — had she allowed him to care for her in the 
filial fashion of earlier days. 

He had hoarded so much to confide to her^her, 
only — in those six years of her absence ! The bare 
fact of his father’s sudden decease had been commu- 
nicated to her, with the rest of the world. He had 
meant to describe what nobody else would ever know ; 
how he had found him, sitting at his desk, stone-dead, 
on that May afternoon, a drift of apple-blossoms, 
blown by the west wind through the open window, in 
the little valley between the debit and credit pages of 
the big ledger. Rex had the same seat now, and for 
the rest of that year, had audited the accounts in the 
same book. He never took the chair or touched the 
ledger without reviewing the scene ; never saw or 
smelled the blossoming orchard, stretching down to 


A GALLAiVT FIGHT. 


I2I 


the river behind the mills, that he did not sicken in 
the recollection of how the cream-pink petals were 
caught and heaped about the dead hand resting on 
the desk. He never spoke of the haunting horror. 
There was no temptation to tell it to any one on the 
hither side of the Atlantic, and it was not a thing to 
be written. He had loved one woman, and she was 
dead. He had had one friend to whom he was as a son, 
and she wrote to him twice, or, at most, three times a 
year. Of Isabel, he would have said that they were 
still on excellent terms. She had a clear business 
head, and he took counsel with her in matters per- 
taining to the estate, as he would with another man. 
At home, she made him luxuriously comfortable ; 
trained the children, his wards by his father’s will, to 
respect and like him, and infused into her old good- 
fellowship a becoming touch of deference and de- 
pendence. 

He had been homesick and heartsick for his “ real 
mother’s” return, and she was but the friendliest of 
acquaintances to him ! There was no lack, appa- 
rently, in her interest in him, or none upon which he 
could base an appeal. She encouraged him to talk 
of his home and business, of the children, and his 
method of playing parent and brother together ; ques- 
tioned him as to the changes in town and neighbor- 
hood ; detailed her husband’s plans for their home- 
going, and conferred with him as to needed restora- 
tions in the old house ; discussed foreign travel and 
Paul’s scholarship ; Richard’s good fortune in finding 
complete renovation of health where thousands sought 
it in vain. There was no limit to the number and 


122 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


variety of topics on which she chatted well and flu- 
ently. And ever between them spread a film of ice 
he could, not break or pass. The invisible lines of 
sympathy no longer connected soul with soul. Had 
his dear, dead past never been also hers, they might 
have spoken together as confidentially and fully as 
they did during the hours in which no third person 
was within hearing. He had not been able to men- 
tion Marion’s name, although he had tried, once and 
again, to introduce it. Surely, if time had so mel- 
lowed the poignancy of grief for him that he would 
have found a mournful pleasure in conversing of her 
with one who had known and loved his darling better 
than any other human being, himself excepted, a 
brave, sensible woman like Mrs. Phelps ought not to 
shun the pain of such reminiscences. 

Too loyal to blame her for his disappointment, and 
over-ready, in habitual self-depreciation, to conclude 
the fault to be in himself, he turned to the daughter 
for what he craved and did not get from the mother — 
womanly sympathy. Here, at least, was no ice to 
break. The sunny, sensitive face, raised to him in 
maidenly frankness ; the unabashed smile of welcome 
or response ; the fresh, unspoiled joyousness of her 
young life, were balm to the heart-pain very far 
down. ■ ■-" 

The day was gray, with no menace of storm; a 
silvery gray — meditative, not brooding — that would 
have been sultriness in the low countries, and was, at 
this altitude, cool and cheering shadow. The ladies 
did not raise their parasols, and congratulated them- 
selves on the sunlessness, as each hill-top revealed a 


A GALLAA^T FIGHT. 


123 


new and wider landscape of wood, valley, stream and 
mountain. The welcome veil of cloud lay high, over- 
rising the loftiest peaks, subduing without obscuring 
the rugged features of a region that is harsh until 
grass and foliage are in greenest prime. Farming in 
a country where snow may be expected in ten months 
out of the twelve, is necessarily furtive and slovenly, 
the meagre crops being snatched, as it were, by 
stealth from the reluctant soil. The trail of the lum- 
berer is over all ; stumps stand as exclamation-points 
of desolation on arid hill-tops, girdle — like fossil- 
ized octopi, their bodies turned inward, straggling, 
clutching arms outward — fields, thinly clothed with 
herbage. 

It was a relief to eye and mind when the road 
plunged downward into glens, was crossed by foam- 
ing torrents,'and edged with a dense growth of tama- 
rack, balsam, and arbor-vitae. 

“ I am thankful they are not valuable as timber,” 
said Salome, taking in deep breaths of astringent 
sweetness. “ Insignificance has its immunities and 
advantages. Take it all and in all,” she resumed, 
after a moment of smiling musing, “I believe I would 
rather be a balsam-fir than an oak ! It is better to 
be good for nothing, but to be cheerful all the year 
’round, to help weary people to rest, and sick people 
to get well, than to be built into houses, ships and 
railways. The mission of mediocrity is underrated 
in our world and day. It is a safe and beneficent 
mean to be neither great nor too small.” 

“ The ‘ fresh-colored ’ boy in the Valley of Humili- 
ation thought it safest to be so low down that he 


124 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


coold get no lower,” said Mrs. Phelps, over her 
shoulder. 

“ I always, despised that pious prig who made such 
vaunt of his patches and humility ! ” Miss Marcy 
commented, incisively. “ I agree with Salome, that 
respectable mediocrity is the happiest state for man 
or woman. Not,” with mock severity, “ that I con- 
sider her qualified to speak on the subject ! ’! 

‘‘ Just what I was longing to say, and dared not ! ” 
rejoined Rex heartily, watching the clear crimson rise 
in the cheek next to him. 

Salome shook her saucy head. 

“ You two shall not Matter me out of my evergreen 
nook ! Remember — the axe is laid at the root of 
hardwood trees. I love peace, obscurity and long life. 
The thought of early death is terrible to me. It is 
violence c^one to Nature ! ” 

Mrs. Phelps looked straight forward ; Rex turned 
his head and gazed at the bank, black with leaf-loam, 
through which the road was cut. His gloved hand 
gripped the iron rail of his seat until it was numb. 
In dingle and on boulder, in brawling stream and 
gothic glade, he saw the beautiful, still face with the 
mysterious white light upon it, fairer by so much — oh, 
so much ! than that of the younger living creature 
beside him ! Had the same haunting thought silenced 
the child’s mother ? Then, ought not some per- 
ception of her sympathy to lessen the dull, hard 
anguish he should, by now, be used to bearing 
alone ? 

A joyful cry from Salome aroused him : 

“ Stop ! please stop ! ” to the driver, “ I caught 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 125 

sight of trailing arbutus on the edge of the bank ! I 
must have it ! " 

“ My love ! ” protested her mother, “ arbutus in 
bloom so late in May ! ” 

Hardly, I think ! ” said Rex. “ Let me explore ! ” 

She was upon the ground as soon as he, with one 
agile spring over the wheel, and ran swiftly back to 
the spot designated. Scaling the bank before he 
could reach her, she fell upon her knees and brushed 
aside fir-needles and twigs. 

“ I fancied that I smelled them before I saw them 
— the darlings ! she breathed in the subdued tone 
of intense delight, as the dainty pink cups and glossy 
leaves were exposed. “ Think ! I have not seen one 
before, since we left Freehold ! ” 

The wagon waited at the foot of the long, steep hill, 
while the flower-seekers rambled in the forest, as 
completely secluded as if separated from the rest 
of the party by miles of woodland. The slender- 
stemmed tassels of the larches hung motionless ; 
the hardy arbor-vitae stood up stiff and still ; only the 
balsams breathed in harmonious sighs, drowned by 
the rustling footsteps, the pluck of eager fingers, as 
cluster after cluster of blossoms peeped above the 
brown blanket. 

“ It would be robbery and waste to gather more ! ” 
the girl said, raising herself, at last her arms full. 
“ How nearly we had passed them by ! Is not this 
delicious ? ” 

She buried her face in the flushed snow of the 
mass. 

Rex Lupton was — said those who liked him and those 


126 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


who did not, most decidedly of all himself — a man of 
mediocre ability and slow fancy. But he thought, as 
she stood there, her face a little uplifted, taking in 
with every sense the influences of the place, that the 
dark woods held her to their heart as they had shel- 
tered the brave delicacy of the Mayflowers. The 
scent of balsam and cedar had some subtle associa- 
tiveness with her high, loving spirit he could not 
define, but must feel forever thereafter. 

Still, it was only as a gifted, interested and most 
winsome child that he thought of her, as he led her 
down the slope and put her back into the wagon. A 
dear child ! so like the friend he could not win back 
that he found solace in being with her. A graceful 
child, who would develop into a fine woman some 
day, but could never be so glorious in beauty, so 
enchanting in variety of mood, so earnest in passion, 
so bewitching in frolic, as the girl whose name his 
lips never formed. 

In merry and serious chat the hours slid by, until, 
at noon, they left the main road for a wooded lane, 
emerging from this into a sterile field, and saw be- 
yond it a frame cabin set down, with a few mean out- 
houses, in the middle of the wilderness-farm. All were 
homely, unpainted, comfortless, the home in life — 
when he let himself have a home — of John Brown. 

A rude fence enclosed his grave and a solitary 
gray boulder, with a step-ladder leaning against the 
taller side. A woman, in calico gown and sunbonnet 
to match, ran out at their approach. She had a key 
in her hand, and, without waiting for orders, applied 
it to a rusty padlock pendent from a wooden box 


A GALLANT FIG LIT. 


127 


like a flattened bee-hive set upon the grave-head. 
Before lifting it, she held out a sallow wrinkled 
palm. 

Ten cents apiece, if you please ! ” 

The guide explained : 

It hez to be kep’ kivered up t’ bender visitors 
from hackin’ it to pieces, an’ carryin’ of it clean 
away.” 

friends or foes had attacked it zealously before the 
precaution was taken. The edges were chipped 
and jagged ; the dents and bruises left by ruthless 
Ixammers encroached upon the inscriptions which 
covered the upright slab from ground to crown. 

“ Somewhat the worse for the moths ! ” observed 
Gerald coolly, from his standpoint nearest the relic. 

The reaction from the solemnity of the place and 
hour provoked a general laugh, and the petted boy 
read aloud the uppermost epitaph with laborious dis- 
tinctness : 

“ ‘ In memory of Caply John Brown ivho died at New 
York Sept, ye 3 1776 in the ^2 year of his Age.' 

** Who was he ? ” addressing the custodian with a 
look of utter simplicity. 

Father of the martered John Brown,” she re- 
sponded, in a sing-song tone. “ The stun were 
brought here when the fain’ly moved from Masser- 
chusitts.” 

“ They were of an economical cast of mind,” 
assented the boy in grave approval. “ They turned 
the ‘ stun ’ inside out and used it for the rest of the 
* fam’ly.’ We often do that in Massachusetts.” 

Gerald ! none of that ! ” 


128 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Vexed with himself and the others for the unseemly 
merriment, Rex took hold of the boy’s shoulder. 
Gerald twitched it away. 

“ One minute, old fellow ! I want to pursue my 
historical and mortuary studies. Hello ! here’s a 
jolly go I 

“ ^ John Broivn^ Born May 9 1800, was executed at 
Charleston^ Virginia^ Dec. 2 1859.’ 

“ Born twenty-four years after his father died ! Oh ! 
oh ! oh ! ” 

He threw himself on his back on the grass and 
roared. 

The contagion was irresistible. The awesomeness 
of the desolate sublimity of the scene ; the memories 
connected with the man who slept in the neglected 
grave ; the horror of his violent death, — availed 
nothing against the exquisite ludicrousness of the 
climax. Mrs. Phelps’s just sense of propriety gave 
way, and she leaned against the rock behind her, 
shaking with laughter, while Miss Marcy sank sud- 
denly upon the grave, too weak to stand, and mirth- 
ful tears ran down Salome’s cheeks. The very guide 
gave a surprised guffaw, and Rex could not command 
his voice, angry though he was. Only the woman 
and two slatternly girls, who had joined her from the 
house, looked on in stolid gravity. 

In the first break in the laughter, the custodian’s dry 
drawl was heard : 

“ Mrs. Brown herself tole me it were his father. 
Taint noways likely she would ’a’ made a mistake. I 
don’ see whatever you’re a-laughin’ at ? ” 

Gerald sat up. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


129 


Don’t ! dorit ! It’s perfectly delicious as it is. 
Give her another half-dollar for unlocking the box, 
Rex ! The joke is worth all of fifty dollars. By 
George ! what a second-class job the thing is all 
around — John Brown first, John second, and the rest 
of it ! No wonder his soul keeps ‘ marching on,’ 
double quick ! He can’t afford to stop after starting 
twenty-four years too late.” 

Rex was serious enough now. With one stretch of 
his long arm he picked up the offender, and set him 
on his feet, giving him a little shake as he did it. 

“ We’ve had too much of this nonsense, Gerald ! 
It is in wretched taste — leaving feeling out of the 
question — to crack bad jokes on a man over his grave. 
Especially when the man was one whom every patriot 
honors as a hero and a martyr. I am vexed and 
ashamed ! — as much with myself as with you.” 

And why — may I ask in the spirit of a common 
sensible inquirer — should John Brown be canonized 
as a hero-martyr ? ” 

Miss Marcy put the question calmly, not pug- 
naciously, from her seat on the mound, looking up at 
the indignant brother with round, unwinking eyes. 

Rex replied with unusual promptness. These 
abrupt queries had ceased to startle him. 

John Brown struck the first blow for the freedom 
of a race ; a blow that aroused the nation to a sense 
of the sin of holding four millions of human souls in 
slavery. He fought for freedom against odds in 
Kansas ; he laid down his life for freedom against 
more fearful odds. The most beneficent blunder ever 
made by a Christian government was his execution 


130 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


at Charleston. We owe the abolition of our national 
crime to it.” 

‘‘ Suppose”— the girl began quietly — “ that a. con- 
scientious Communist were to plan ‘ a general uprising * 
against capitalists, employers, and middlemen, a 
wholesale massacre of them and their families, if 
necessary^ in order that their ill-gotten gains might be 
equitably distributed among those whose labor had 
earned them ; that to carry this scheme into exe- 
cution, the most degraded of our foreign population 
were armed, and instructed to be ready to resist the 
oppressors to the death , — if necessary. Suppose, 
further, that in an unsuccessful attempt to execute 
the design, half-a-dozen lives were lost, and the 
leaders of the enterprise were taken, red-handed. 
What punishment would the law and the community 
be likely to inflict ? ’ 

She spoke more deliberately, and with increasing 
gravity, as she went on, rising and gazing down at 
the grave as in arraignment of the occupant. 

“ I know it is the fashion to rank John Brown 
among martyred patriots. What advantage has he 
over my hypothetical Nihilist? He was old enough 
to have heard of the horrors of accomplished servile 
insurrection. In his pity for the slave, did he forget 
merciful thoughts of the planter’s wife and babies ? 
Philanthropists call his ‘ the best organized scheme 
for a general uprising of the negroes ever con- 
ceived by the brain of a hero who loved Freedom as 
he loved his God.’ They regret that ‘ he failed be- 
cause those he would have freed were not ready for 
action.’ Action!' Do the men who say it under- 
stand what that ‘ action ’ would have been ? ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


131 

Her auditors were motionless while the protest was 
entered. Rex and Salome were side by side at the 
foot of the mound. Gerald, released by his brother, 
had retreated to Mrs. Phelps’s side ; the guide put 
one foot on the hive-like wooden case, and his mouth 
pursed in a soundless whistle, stared at the defaced 
head-stone ; the women and children gaped stupidly 
at “ the fat lady-preacher,” as one of them afterward 
designated her. 

“ The cases are hardly identical,” said Rex slowly, 
and not easily. “ Human slavery, legalized on 
American soil, was a hideous crime — a disease in the 
body politic. Appeal to law would have been useless. 
That had been tried. Nor do I believe that John 
Brown meditated a ‘ massacre.’ He hoped that a 
simultaneous insurrection all over the Southern 
States would show slave-holders the folly of resist- 
ance, and intimidate them into making terms. He 
had a kind heart.” 

“ The arguments to be addressed to the masters 
were muskets and pikes by the thousand. John 
Brown had fought slave-holders in Kansas. Did he 
imagine, for one instant, that they would surrender to 
their armed servants without striking a blow ? — 

“ But I ask forgiveness of you all for forgetting 
myself so far as to discuss this matter. Mamma — 
gentle saint ! — charged me to be discreet, and I have 
disobeyed her. Peccavi!" 

She sat down on the lowest step of the ladder, and 
laid her forehead within her clasped hands. 

Salome looked from one to another in piteousness 
of perplexity. 


132 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ What is one to think ?” she said, trying to laugh, 
while she patted Anna’s head reassuringly. “ Mam- 
ma, you always pull crooked things straight ! Who — 
and what — was John Brown ? ” 

“ A fanatic, crazed by grief, I hope, my daughter. 
I cannot reason further. My favorite sister, with her 
two little ones, lived within a mile of Harper’s Ferry 
in 1859. For years I could not hear his name with- 
out a shudder. I leave him to the judgment of One 
who is all-wise and all-merciful. Gerald ! you would 
like to see what is on the top of this rock, and so 
should I, if Miss Marcy will let us pass.” 

Anna held her back until the others had mounted, 
to throw her arms about her neck and whisper peni- 
tently : “ I am sorry ! ” 

“ It is not as if he were alive to defend himself, my 
love,” answered the lady, her eyes deep with strange 
pain. “ God help and pardon us all ! ” 

The sloping crown of the hoary rock had been 
chiselled to a smooth surface, and ^‘John Brown, 
1859,” cut in deep capitals thereupon. From this 
point of observation, the forest-line bounded the 
cleared tract in every direction. Beyond and above 
it arose the eternal mountains upholding the silver- 
gray firmament. Where now heaved the low roll of 
turf, guarded by the battered granite slab, the be- 
reaved father used to read his Bible on Sunday after- 
noons, and, remembering in what “ cause ” his son 
was “murdered at Ossawatomie, Kansas,” in the 
prime of his young manhood, went mad while revolv- 
ing a scheme that should secure that Cause’s 
triumph. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 133 

This was Salome’s merciful summing-up when, in 
the late afternoon, Rex recurred to the subject. 

He had been constrained in look and manner since 
the discussion. The uneasy self-consciousness, 
evolved in the modern New Englander from the un- 
sparing introspection of Puritan progenitors, writhed 
in the sense of defeat. His espousal of a sacred cause 
had been miserably weak ; he was put at a disadvan- 
tage in eyes before which he longed to stand well. 

“Isabel used to call me ‘Reginald the Unready,’ ” 
he said to Salome. “ A man whose command of 
language surpasses mine could have answered Miss 
Marcy’s clever special pleading.” 

Mrs. Phelps and Anna chose the back seat on the 
homeward drive, and were now talking so earnestly 
there was no risk that the two in front would be over- 
heard. Gerald was giving the good-natured guide 
valuable hints as to the management of the off-horse, 
which was coltish and impatient to get home. 

“ Politics and polemics are edged-tools in the 
family circle,” answered Salome, in the guarded sub- 
tone Rex had used. “ But this is so essentially a dead 
issue that discussion is utterly unprofitable. Anna’s 
is a Southern family. It is natural she should feel 
and speak strongly of the ‘John Brown Raid.’ It is 
equally reasonable that you should hold adverse opin- 
ions. Poor John Brown ! As mamma says, the 
charitable view of the quixotic enterprise is to believe 
that he was insane — at least, a monomaniac.” 

Then she reverted to the Kansas struggle, his losses, 
and his secluded life at North Elba. 

“You have your mother’s gift of healing ! ” smiled 


134 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


her auditor ; “ and her large, sweet charity for the 
erring. Your resolutely happy temperament is from 
your father. You should be thankful for the com- 
bination." 

“I am ! Thankful and glad of any part of me that 
is mamma’s, and grateful for the natural buoyancy of 
disposition that turns me always toward the light. 
But for papa’s sanguine nature, we must have lost him 
years ago. I am looking forward impatiently to see- 
ing him and Paul, day after to-morrow. Our family 
has been a unit for so long, that this fortnight of 
separation is a trial. Papa’s protracted invalidism 
made him peculiarly dependent upon mamma, and now 
that he is well, he cannot break himself of the habit, 
he says." 

“ He would not if he could, I am sure. Depend- 
ence upon such a woman makes a man strong." 

She turned to him with shining eyes. 

“ It does me good through and through, to hear you 
talk of her ! Everybody likes and admires her, of 
course, but comparatively few really know her — how 
tender, how patient, how heroic she is ! I cannot 
remember when she was not my guardian angel, yet I 
seem never to have appreciated certain phases of her 
character until within the last three years. We are 
very intimate — mamma and I ! " with happy compla- 
cency, amusing yet pretty. 

‘‘ I have never known another family so united and 
happy as yours. Except for your father’s illness 
and — and — the accompanying disasters — your lot 
has been all brightness." 

It was growing dark in the defile they were enter- 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


135 


ing ; the forest-depths were black ; the dashes of 
vivid color in the evening sky directly above them 
where the boughs did not meet, were sudden and 
blinding. Miss Marcy was relating an incident 
of Alpine travel to her friend, graphically, but 
not loudly; the young horse was prancing and 
sidling at the streaks of light barring the road at 
intervals. 

“Yes, sir!'* Gerald was enunciating; “ what the 
rascal wants is a chain-curb, one of the kind that will 
cut his tongue in two, if he doesn’t come right in on 
the rein ! ” 

Salome did not speak again until they were near 
the lighter hill-top. 

“ That one great sorrow left* its trace for all time 
upon my dear mother’s heart,” she said, with tremu- 
lous feeling, lowering her voice still more. “ She 
speaks of it to no one — not even to me. Child-like, I 
used to resent reserve I felt to be almost unkind, for 
I loved the lost one passionately. She was the only 
sister I ever had, you know. Once I broke out im- 
patiently to papa. We were visiting the Uffizzi Gal- 
lery in Florence, and I fancied that I detected a re- 
semblance to her in the Madonna Addolarata of 
Sassoferrato, and asked mamma, timidly, ‘ if she 
thought it like any one she had ever known ? ’ She 
scarcely glanced at it, and saying, carelessly, ‘You 
are fanciful on some subjects, my dear,’ walked 
away. Papa put his arm about me when he saw that 
I was choking back the tears, and said : ‘ I see what 
you mean, little girl, and so does mamma, but she can- 
not trust herself to talk of her friend. It is the case 


13 ^ A GALLANT FIGHT. 

with many deep-hearted people. Don’t pain her by 
referring to the subject again.’ ” 

“ I am more grateful to you than I can express for 
telling me this,” returned Rex, agitated and fervent. 
*‘I, too, have been in danger of misjudging her. 
What is the matter, Bryant ? ” 

The wagon had come to a halt in another deeply 
sunken pass ; the horses were plunging excitedly. 
The driver stood up to peer into the gloom. 

“A thunderin’ big hemlock limb hez tumbled over 
in th’ road — most clear acrost it. But there’s room 
to pass, I guess. Get up ! ” 

As Rex half-arose to look past Gerald’s shoulder 
at the dim, shapeless heap filling up the ravine, the 
driver touched the team with the whip, and the young 
horse shied violently, driving the wheels on the left 
side upon a jutting rock. The vehicle careened, and 
shot four of the occupants out into the highway — 
righted at the frantic leap of the frightened animals, 
and was out of sight in the twilight distance before 
the fallen travellers picked themselves up. 

Rex and Bryant were thrown into the middle of the 
road, which was, luckily, soft and damp at that spot. 
Mrs. Phelps and Miss Marcy had slid into the thick- 
est part of the bushy branch that had caused the dis- 
aster. While the guide tugged valiantly to extricate 
the younger lady, Rex laid hold of Mrs. Phelps and 
helped her to her feet. 

“ I hope to heaven you are not hurt ! ” 

“ No ! no ! but my child, Rex ! my child ! ” 
Rescue and exchange of sentences passed so quick- 
ly that the clatter of the hoofs, the whirr of wheels 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


137 


were still audible when both men sprang forward in 
pursuit. They spent no breath in words. The thud 
of feet, the hoarse, hurried pant, as of a dog on the 
chase, told each that the other was at his side. They 
ran like deer, but clatter and rush died away to their 
strained ears before they had gone a hundred yards. 
The hush of a forest night where song-birds do not 
build settled through the vast woodlands on either 
side ; to the starting eyes fixed in one direction, the 
gloom was a thickening, swaying curtain, falling 
lower and nearer with each bound of the wearying 
limbs. 

“ It’s no use killin’ ourselves ! ” the guide pulled 
up to say. “ We can’t overtake ’em nohow, with them 
devilish horses on the jump. We’ll walk on ’till we 
come up with a house, or folks — or somethin’ ! If so 
be anything’s goin’ to happen them two, it’s happened 
by this time — Lord help ’em ! ” 

“ For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue ! ” in the 
keen high key of intensest excitement. “ It cannot 
be ! it shall not be ! ” 

He began to run again, but with feet that caught 
on the uneven ground ; livid streaks flashed before 
his sight ; his heart beat like an unbalanced trip- 
hammer ; each throb hurt his lungs cruelly. Though 
he died for it, he could not stop. Bryant called after 
him, but he held on. No matter what lay at the end 
of the race, he must reach it, or go mad. The guide 
shouted again, and a shrill echo repeated the call ; a 
third time, and the same echo responded, — now nearer, 
with an effect so peculiar that the distracted man 
involuntarily slackened his pace. “ Hallo-o-o ! ” 


138 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


came from behind him, and, “ Ahoy ! ahoy ! ” from 
before. 

It was Gerald’s voice, and following upon his reedy 
falsetto came a woman’s call — clear, vibrant, sweet, — 
filling Rex’s ears, the woods, his world, with pealing 
music. He stopped, spent and weak, tottering back 
against Bryant, as he reached him. 

“ Bear up, sir, bear up for the Lord’s sake! It’s 
them, safe an’ soun’, sure’s shootin’ ! But where in 
thunder did they scare up a light ? ” 

For a glimmer, like a fallen star, pierced the dark- 
ness far down the road, swinging, in nearing them. 
As they hastened onward to meet it, they distin- 
guished two figures. 

“ Halloo ! there they are ! ” shouted Gerald. 
“ We’re all right ! ” 

“ Mamma ! ” cried Salome. “ Oh, Mr. Lupton ! 
where is mamma ? ” 

“ Safe ! safe ! my — ” 

Long habitual repression shut back the word. But 
he did take the trembling hands in his that were no 
steadier, and drew her to his side. 

“ All are safe 1 quite safe ! ” he repeated. “ Thank 
God that you are not hurt ! Lean on me ! ” as he 
felt her shake *with sobs of overwrought emotion. 

Sit here ! ” leading her to a fallen tree made visi- 
ble by the lantern. “ Bryant will get back to her 
sooner than you could.” 

‘‘ I’ll run on with my lantern ! ” volunteered Ger- 
ald, talking loudly and fast in the self-importance of 
heroship. “ I had just crawled under the seat to look 
for it. I knew we could get around that blamed tree 


A GALLAiVT FIGHT. 


139 

better if the horses could see what it was, you know 

when we tipped over. And when the old caboose 
righted, there I had stuck, wedged in, you know, in 
the bottom, and Salome had hung fast to the rail- 
ing of the seat, and there we were, sir, bound for king- 
dom-come at a 2:40 rate ! Salome recollected, as 
quick as wink, the heavy, wet, sandy stretch at the 
foot of the hill where you stopped for arbutus, you 
know, and passed the word to me to be ready to light 
out, when the brutes slowed up there, as they would 
certainly have to do. When we had ^ 

found I had hung on to the glim'through everything, 
you know, and I had matches in my pocket. So we 
fired up, and came back to look up the rest of the 
party. Come, Bryant ! Take care of her until we 
get back, Rex. She’s a brick ! ” 

Salome began to laugh, as the two moved off. 

That dear, absurd boy ! ” 

“ Don’t try to talk, dear child ! Rest, instead ! ” 

“ You are sure mamma is not hurt ! You would 
not deceive me, Mr. Rex ! ” 

“ I have told you the truth.” 

They sat side by side, in the dense darkness shut- 
ting down about them with .the withdrawal of the lan- 
tern, and when he had told her, in as few words as pos- 
sible, the manner of her mother’s and friends’ escape, 
neither offered to speak. Shaken and weak, now that 
the necessity of movement was over, and suspense had 
made way for the blessed certainty that her mother 
was alive and safe, Salome linked her hands upon a 
projecting branch of the prostrate trunk and rested 


140 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


her head upon them, too happy to think, or wish, or 
be impatient. 

Gazing up at the stars glimpsed through the gaps 
where the foliage did not join over the highway, Rex 
returned thanks in his voiceless way for the salvation 
of the young life, as full of thrilling possibilities as 
had been that of another woman, as beloved and more 
fair, more richly endowed by nature and by fortune, 
whom Fate — or Providence — had not spared, six 
years ago. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


R ichard PHELPS and his son had broken 
camp on Amperzand three days before his 
wife and daughter left Martin’s to rejoin them. 
For three nights Salome had ceased to look out as 
soon as it was really dark, for the glimmer of the 
double watch-fire kindled on the mountain, which was 
the preconcerted signal to the two left behind. The 
camping party had moved onward through Round 
Lake, via Bartlett’s, to the Upper Saranac, whipping 
every promising trout-stream on the route. The 
rendezvous on Saturday afternoon was to be Bartlett’s. 
The Marcys would remain a week longer at Martin’s, 
awaiting the arrival of the husband and father from 
the west. Ten days later they hoped to rejoin their 
friends at Paul Smith’s. 

There was no shadow of parting to overcast the 
spirits of the four voyagers who stepped gayly into 
the boats laid at the sloping wharf on the finest of 
May mornings. The brothers separated by mutual 
consent. Gerald found in Mrs. Phelps an ever in- 
dulgent listener to stories of escapade and exploit. 

“ She’s as jolly as a fellow, every time ! ” he con- 
fided to his amused room-mate. “ Knows Freehold 
like a book ; remembers everybody — name and history. 
Talking with her is all plain sailing, you see. No 
tacking to explain who is who, and what is what. 


142 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


Then, having a boy of her own, she understands what 
a fellow really likes to hear and talk about. So, if 
you don’t mind, I should like to go in her boat.” 

Rex repeated the speech with relish to Salome as 
they faced each other in the blue-bodied boat, sweep- 
ing right onward between an island, robed to the lake- 
edge with grayish-green ferns, on their right, and the 
wooded mainland on the left. 

“ What an audacious, vivacious ‘ fellow ’ he is ! ” 
she answered, eyeing the lithe figure in loose sailor 
attire, alert in every turn and glance, now coaxing 
Bryant into letting him take an oar in the boat not 
twenty yards away from them. “ Will you let me 
remark upon your judicious management of him ? ” 

Rex colored slightly. 

“You are good to say it. Frankly, though, he 
ought not to be in my charge. We are too unlike not 
to differ sharply at times. But the children are a 
trust I cannot shirk.” 

“ You are young to have such laid upon you.” 

“ I am twenty-nine. That sounds patriarchal, 
does it not ? ” 

“ Oh, no ! Papa is forty-one, with the complexion, 
eyes, and spirits of a boy. You look very much as 
you did at twenty-three. Only — sometimes — it seems 
a pity ! ” 

She said it thoughtfully, trailing her bare hand 
over the guards in the lake, her tone hardly louder 
than the ripple between her fingers. 

Rex waited a minute for her to go on. 

“ What is a pity ? ” he asked, gently bending 
toward her, until his eyes drew hers from the water. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. I43 

She looked surprised, but not confused, at the in- 
tentness of his gaze. 

“ I should not say it, perhaps, for you, of all men, 
appear to me to have been made to walk and stand 
without others’ help ; but I am sorry for any one 
who has had no youth. There is violence in the im- 
position of untimely care upon those who are yet in 
the morning of life.” 

“ Is a belated spring always a lost season ? ” 

“ By no means. On the contrary, there is less 
danger of frost-killed blossoms and fruit.” 

“ There is then hope for me still, you think ? ” 

A little lift of the eyebrows emphasized the reply. 

“ Hope ? Who could have more } — or fairer oppor- 
tunities of duty, and duty’s reward? Taking spring- 
time as the season of promise, you should not com- 
plain. Without dipping into homiletics, we may take 
it for granted that work for others’ good is the high- 
est form of human enterprise. Then — you ought to 
be satisfied ! ” 

“ Satisfied ! ” He drew in a deep breath of sun- 
warmed air, crisped by resinous fragrance, and some 
spiritual tension relaxed with the wave of sensuous 
pleasure passing over him. He had walked all hi^ 
life-time subject to bondage. Neither mind nor 
heart had fed and grown freely. His world was 
narrow ; his restrictions were many. However en- 
viable his lot might appear to others, he knew him- 
self to be hungry and frozen. 

In Freehold, where he was best known, nobody 
‘‘took to him” — in provincial phrase. His step- 
mother was a business partner and agreeable acquaint- 


144 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


ance. The children” obeyed him as a guardian, and 
tolerated his unskilful efforts to enter into their pur- 
suits and feelings. Behind his back they mimicked his 
sober face and stiff phrases. He had overheard them 
at it once, and been angered, where most men would 
have been diverted by the monkeys. If this frank, 
fearless girl had known Freehold people and his repu- 
tation there, would she be constrained in his society, 
or despise him, as he despised himself, for not assert- 
ing his individuality — for his apparent content in the 
role of “the son of his father”? People thus nick- 
named him, and he knew that, too. He was glad that 
he had her for these ten days to himself, unbiased by 
the tradition of his antecedents which hampered him 
at home like swaddling bands. 

But, to be “ satisfied ”? That would mean to look 
forward as well as backward ; to have a home and 
life, of which he could say, “ This is mine — to have, 
to hold, to enjoy ! ” 

The smart blue-and-white-shirted guide who had 
the young people in charge was so much the better 
oarsman than amateur Gerald, that by the time they 
reached the narrower upper waters of the lake, they 
had left him and his passengers out of sight. Salome 
lay back in the chair-seat fitted in the stern, in silent 
ecstacy of enjoyment. The boat swept, without 
sway or swash, through the warm, smiling waters, 
dimpling at the dalliance of the oars ; the sunshine 
shimmered through azure gauze upon the young 
foliage of birches, showing like pale-green mist 
among firs and pines ; upon the pink leafage of 
shoots springing up from the roots of felled oaks. At 


145 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 

rare intervals, the tassels of a maple surprised the 
eye with a gleam of crimson, and rotting logs thrUvSt 
blotches of brilliant ochre over the brown shallows 
lapping the bank. Balsamic breaths crossed and 
flowed with the woody aroma of tender sprouts. 
Right ahead, Amperzand, White face. Bald Mountain 
and Marcy, in corslet, baldric and helmet of blue-and- 
silver, were ranged to guard the Eden of woods and 
waters. Beyond them, a chain of fainter peaks was 

folden in distance and in dream.” 

Unconsciously, the girl began, by-and-by, to croon 
to herself a simple melody Rex had never heard be- 
fore, but which went went well with the scarcely 
audible rhythm of the oars and soft throb of the 
waves, as they were parted by the prow. The 
murmur took words in the refrain, as ripples might 
be accentuated by the turn of the boat to right 
or left, 

“ And the flowing tide comes in! 

And the flowing tide comes in! ” 

“ Sing it — please I ” 

The request was hardly more than a breath, yet the 
songstress started and blushed. 

“ I did not know that I was humming it ! I was 
thinking a little ballad that papa likes to have mamma 
sing. You know it too — do you ? 

“ I have no doubt of it ! I can tell you certainly 
when you have granted my petition. It must be im- 
possible for any one who can sing, not to do it here, 
and to-day I, who have neither ear nor voice, must 
have burst into song if you had not. You do not 


146 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


know — I hope you never may ! — what your involun- 
tary ‘ humming ’ has averted.” 

The boatman grinned. Salome, catching his eye, 
laughed, and without further demur began her song: 

“ He sailed away at break of day, 

The skies were blue and fair, 

He kissed his bonnie hand to me. 

With heart as light as air. 

‘ Hark ye ! ’ he cried, ‘ go watch the tide 
As it cometh up to Lynn ; 

For, foul or fair, I will be there 
When the flowing tide comes in! ’ 

» I watched the clouds, that came in crowds, 

Like flocks of evil birds ; 

My heart sank low with bitter woe, 

Remembering Donald’s words. 

*0 God! ’ I cried, and none beside 
Knew the grief my heart within — 

‘ Oh! give me back my bonnie lad. 

When the flowing tide comes in! ’ 

Across the strand, far up the land, 

The fierce, wild waters swept; 

Laid at my feet a burden sweet. 

With smile as if he slept. 

I could not weep, so soft his sleep, 

For fear ’twould waken him — 

Peace! let him rest! God knoweth best! 

And the flowing tide comes in! ” 

The fresh, tender voice bore the strain over the 
dimpling lake into the listening forest ; cliff and crag 
brought it back faint and fitful, but tunefully pathetic 
still : 

“ Peace! let him rest! God knoweth best! 

And the flowing tide comes in! 

And the flowing tide comes in! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


47 


The boatman drew his shirt-sleeve across his eyes ; 
the muscles in Rex’s throat knotted so tightly that he 
could utter nothing for a minute, beyond a husky 
“ Thank you.” 

1 wish you could hear mamma sing it,” remarked 
Salome, modestly apologetic, as the pause began to be 
awkward. “ Papa insisted that she should give it to 
us on the Grand Lagoon in Venice, one night, when 
there was a full moon, and no other gondola was 
near us. I am not ashamed to say that I could not 
see the moon for tears. Papa says ‘ When the Flowing 
Tide Comes in,’ makes a baby of him, when mamma 
sings it.” 

Let their conversation begin where it would, it al- 
ways swung around to “ mamma.” Rex, with no sense 
of the humor of the fact, followed the daughter’s lead 
now : 

“ Musically considered, I am a deaf blockhead, as 
I have confessed. But there are voices that have 
found their way to my soul, through some avenue. 
Hers did, and yours does. It is not a compliment, 
perhaps, to say this after such a preface. When I 
get up a neat thing I always make a fiasco of it ! I 
recollect well how I used to love to listen to Mrs. 
Phelps’s singing, and that she improvised words and 
music — ” 

He broke off abruptly on a rising inflection. Their 
startled eyes met. 

The writer of this chronicle reoalls how, a quarter- 
century ago, in the stormy “ war times,” she strolled, 
one cloudless January morning, with a company of 
friends through the Patent Office in Washington, and. 


148 A GALLANT FIGHT. 

in the long line of recesses in a large hall, came upon 
one screened by a white curtain. With merry chat of 
mystery and feminine curiosity, the foremost of the 
gay party drew aside the hangings, and fell back 
aghast, at sight of a dead soldier on a bier, awaiting 
transportation to his Northern home! 

Such shock and recoil were in the faces that con- 
fronted one another in the filtered sunlight of this 
Adirondack day. Almost before Salome could note 
the reflection of her emotion in Rex’s countenance, 
it passed before a great, solemn calm. His eyes 
gleamed and softened, — a grave sweetness, more reas- 
suring than a smile, moved his mouth. He put out 
his hand, careless of the guide’s presence. 

“ We have much in common,” he said. “ We ought 
to be friends^ for a life-time ! ” 

The girl’s honest simplicity told in the heartiness 
with which she met hand and speech : 

“ We could never be anything else, Mr. Rex!” 

“ That is ever so much more natural than your 
later trick of calling me ‘Mr. Lupton’! Some day, 
we must have a long, free talk of that by-gone time. 
That is, if I can bear my part in it. Reticence, long 
maintained, makes expression dififlcult and painful. 
It would do me good in every way, if I could creep 
out of my shell. All New Englanders wear them, 
but some shell-fish are more lively than others.” 

“ Anna classifies us as Crustacea, I know,” inter- 
preting his design gf turning the dialogue into less 
confidential channels. “ I am loth to believe that 
warm-blooded animals can live nowhere except at the 
South and West.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


149 


They kept away from delicate ground after that. 
The Phelpses were good talkers, and their years of 
travel had given the daughter longer and more varied 
views of men and things than most girls have at her 
age. Utterly destitute of affectation and petty love of 
shining, she was more bent upon entertaining her 
escort than having what the American girl covets as 
a good time.” Her chat of travel, historical associa- 
tions, foreign social habits, ethics, even the politics of 
older lands — was an easy, sparkling flow that would 
have done honor to the queen of a salon, — or so thought 
her educated listener. The guide dipped the oars 
more softly, his eyes set> on the animated face, drink- 
ing in all that he could comprehend, and loyally ad- 
miring what he could not. 

Meanwhile, the lake widened, and narrowed again 
in the lee of a mighty rock; the channel grew tortuous 
and more rapid; shallows choked with lily- pads and 
rushes, encroaching upon it; at every second beat an 
oar brought up a tangle of roots and grasses. 

^‘You’ll land her before we shoot the rapids?” 
interposed the guide, without preamble, swinging the 
boat around to shore with a strong, bold pull on the 
right oar. 

Here, already! ” with the air of one aroused from 
a dream. You have rowed well 1 Certainly we will 
get out ! ” 

He stepped upon the broad, flat rock by which the 
boat lay quivering under the oarsman’s hold, like a 
hound on the leash, and assisted Salome to land. 

With a bound and a curvet, throwing up her head 
madly, then darting downward as a swallow skims the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


150 

water, the skiff flung herself through the shute, swirl 
and spray of the Raquette Falls, and lay rocking on 
the placid surface beyond. 

“ Well done! ” pronounced Rex, to whom the exploit 
was not a new sight, although Salome caught her breath 
excitedly. Then, to her, — “ We will wait here for the 
other boat. You may like to walk about after sitting 
so long. This is the shortest ‘ carry ’ in the chain 
of lakes. Indeed, it hardly deserves the name, as 
even transportation-boats usually shoot the rapids." 

White and rosy and buff blossoms, the names of 
which they did not know, studded damp, deep mosses 
growing upon rocks warmed by the sun. On the 
grass under a thorn-bush, they found a last year’s 
birds’ nest. Coarse gray moss covered a frame of 
woven grass, finer mosses lined it. Salome sat on a 
rock, Rex standing by her, while she filled the nest 
with flowers, interspersed with the woolly crooks of 
young ferns, when the dip of oars was heard from two 
quarters. On their right appeared Mrs. Phelp’s 
boat, from the left two, — cutting the water under the 
impetus of stout, manly arms. Gerald’s feeble pipe 
of salutation was drowned by a deep-throated cheer 
from Richard and Paul Phelps. A third man fol- 
lowed them to land. Rex shook hands with him, 
while the family greetings went on. 

“Hardly expected to meet you in the woods, Mr. 
Lupton! ’’ said one, with an effort at cordial ease. 

The other — “ How do you do, Mr. Lee ? ’’ 

“ My love! ’’ Richard turned his fine, sunny face 
toward them to say, still holding his wife’s hand 
in his, — “ I must have you know a gentleman who has 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 151 

done much toward making the last week pleasant for 
us, — Mr. Lee, of Freehold! ” 

It was a handsome boy — he looked like one, 
although three-and-twenty — who bared his short, 
brown curls, and bowed in acknowledgment of the 
introduction. He had laughing hazel eyes, a ready 
smile that showed brilliant teeth under a slight mous- 
tache, and much grace of address and carriage. 

“ A nice fellow! " Paul said aside to his sister. 
“ You’ll like him! ” 

Not until Mr. Phelps had presented his new friend 
to both ladies, did he seem to .see the tall figure 
standing on the outskirts of the group. The atmos- 
phere of aloofness that went everywhere with Rex 
Lupton was significant, rather than characteristic. 
He has been on the circumference of everything for so 
long that he fitted in nowhere, — a peculiarity of 
which he was more painfully conscious than anybody 
else. Even Richard’s suavity suffered a change as his 
eye rested upon him. 

“Ah, Mr. Lupton!” extending a civil hand. “I 
hope I have the pleasure of seeing you quite well ? 
It has been a long time since we met. Mrs. Phelps’s 
letters, which I found awaiting me at Bartlett’s last 
night, informed me that you were at Martin’s, in quest 
of health for your brother — ” smiling and shaking 
hands less formally with Gerald. “ He looks thin, 
but not at all ill. Our little coup d'etat of the meeting 
was entirely successful ” — addressing his wife. “ We 
could not have timed our arrivals better. If we 
would enjoy one of Mrs. Bartlett’s best dinners before 
it is spoiled, we must re-embark forthwith.” 


152 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


His courtesy to the son of his old neighbor was 
perfect, and as lifeless as the action of an automaton. 
As coolly and easily he directed the seating in the 
boats of the enlarged party. It was altogether nat- 
ural that he should take his wife with him and in- 
struct Paul to assume the charge of his sister. 

“ That leaves us three fellows out in the cold ! ” 
observed Lee, sotto voce., to Rex. There was the same 
evident attempt at friendliness as before, and the like 
failure. “ May I ask your brother to share my 
canoe?'’ he went on, daunted, but persevering. 

“ Assuredly — if you wish it. Gerald, will you ac- 
cept Mr. Lee’s offer ? ” 

The boy could not have rejected it, with decent 
grace, but in the loneliness that had befallen Rex in 
the last five minutes, he wished Gerald would elect to 
go with him, and was unreasonably chagrined at his 
eager assent to the proposal of so slight an acquaint- 
ance as the elder knew Hollis Lee to be. The air 
was raw, the sunshine wan, as he bestowed himself in 
the bows of the boat, after watching the guide’s dis- 
position of the luggage in the stern to trim the craft, 
now that the chair-backed seat was empty. 

A thought struck him, as the oars touched the 
water. 

“You are the best oarsman in the party, and our 
load is the lightest. Moody,” he, said, in the hard, 
quiet accents his mill-hands knew best. “ Push on as 
fast as you can. I shall get a lunch at Bartlett’s, and 
go straight on to the upper lake for an afternoon’s 
fishing.” 

He pulled his hat down upon his brows and braced 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 153 

his heels against a boat-rib ; the slender craft 
bounded on in the lessening wake of the others. 

“ Hooray ! ” shouted Gerald, as it passed him ; Lee 
swung his hat and laughed ; Salome waved her hand, 
and Paul raised his hat in reply to the grave bow 
from the head uncovered to the ladies. 

Mrs. Phelps looked after the swiftly-receding boat 
with intentness that made her husband say: 

“ Characteristic — that ! There is a lack of socia- 
bility which is discourtesy.” 

The wife seemed not to have heard him. 

“ Who is Mr. Lee ? ” she asked. “ He has a pleas- 
ing face.” 

A brother of Rev. Rufus Lee, who removed to 
Freehold after we went abroad. This boy, Hollis, is 
a lawyer, and hopes in time to get clients, he says. 
He is one of the finest fellows I have met for many 
a day. I hope we shall see a great deal of him when 
we are settled at home.” 

Mr. Lupton was not at the landing to receive his 
friends upon their arrival at Bartlett’s. Gerald ac- 
counted for him at the dinner-table : 

‘‘ He halted just long enough to have a sandwich 
put up for him, then pushed across the carry to the 
‘ Upper.’ I guess he’ll turn up at supper-time. The 
trout won’t bite after sunset. He loves fishing better 
than anything else in the world.” 

They kept early hours at Bartlett’s when the nights 
were too cool for sitting on the porch. Salome had 
gone to her room when she heard steps in the passage 
and voices in the room opposite hers — Gerald’s uncere- 
monious “ Hello ! ” and Rex’s lower and slower tones 


154 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


in reply. The girl smiled at her image, reflected in 
the small dingy mirror. She was glad her friend had 
come back ; but she had been very happy with Paul 
all the afternoon and evening. Hollis Lee and Ger- 
ald had spent their daylight hours on the lake and 
rambling ashore, and she had had her twin-brother 
quite to herself. Paul would enter the Junior class 
at Yale in the autumn. They must make the most of 
the next few months together. He liked his new 
comrade, Hollis Lee — also a Yale man — “ immensely," 
and she was prepared to do the same on his recom- 
mendation. Paul had asked “if Lupton, Jr., were as 
blas^ and glacial as of old ? " She defended her 
friend warmly, yet she wondered silently, while brush- 
ing and binding up her hair, her face growing soberer 
with thinking, if there were not something unfortunate 
in the manner so many people disliked. Her father 
spoke of him to Paul in her hearing as “ a starched 
and stupid puppy," and she saw Hollis Lee turn 
away to hide a sudden laugh at the epithet. 

Yet “ Mamma" surely liked him, still ! She said it 
to herself after her head was on the pillow, her brain 
steadying with the assertion. She loved and honored 
her father, but she had not lived with him for twenty 
years with both young eyes wide open, and not learned 
that, like other men, he was seldom extravagant in 
admiration of his own sex. Also, that when this 
occurred, it was almost certain to be the corollary to 
the favored individual’s appreciation of Richard 
Phelps’s admirable qualities. It was a weakness 
common to humankind, she reasoned loyally, to recip- 
rocate good-will by good-will. She was vexed, when 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


155 


she would have gone to sleep, to find her brain 
actively speculating as to what offence Rex had offered 
her parent’s self-love, and what incense Hollis Lee 
had offered at the same shrine. 

The thought crossed her mind again, as her prom- 
enade on the piazza with her father before breakfast 
next morning was interrupted by meeting the brothers. 
Gerald was arrayed in a fresh white tennis-shirt, 
stitched with blue ; his eyes danced gayly in his sun- 
burnt face, his hair was wet, his complexion healthy 
from a swim in the lake. Rex, clean-shaven except 
for moustache and squared whiskers, wore what to the 
Adirondack vernacular is known as “a b’iled shirt,” 
a stiff collar and speckless gray coat and trousers. 
He might have been setting forth for a New England 
meeting-house where he expected to “ take up the 
collection.” As on yesterday, Richard’s manner 
varied in addressing the two, and in resuming the 
walk he kept Gerald close to him by rapid questions 
and flattering interest in the lad’s replies. Salome 
slipped her hand from his arm and fell behind to 
Rex’s side, the porch being too narrow for three 
to walk abreast, when one of them wore flowing 
skirts. 

“ I hope you were successful in your fishing excur- 
sion ? ” she said, cheerfully. 

She could not have uttered a more trite thing, but 
the sympathetic voice and clear, ingenuous eyes con- 
veyed all that he would have had her say. They 
were friends, between whom the meetings and part- 
ings of yesterday had left no shadow. There is always 
a jar, sometimes an unsettling, in the fusion of two or 


156 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


more travelling-parties that, up to the hour of the 
junction, have been perfectly harmonious. The un- 
coupling and rejoining are not more happily effected 
when members of the same family have belonged to 
the different sections. The readjustment of relations 
is awkward to some one or more of the company, 
occasionally to all. It gave Rex a disagreeable sen- 
sation to see Salome’s hand on her father’s arm, and 
resting there more familiarly than it had on his in the 
long walks they were wont to take together on the 
piazza of the Saranac Lake House. One whose rights 
preceded and dominated his had possession of the 
companion who had interested and drawn him out of 
his monotonous reserve. He was conscious of a loss 
and a new-born longing he had not analyzed when 
Salome joined him. Heart and face warmed, as he 
offered his arm with a glance she did not see, and 
Hollis Lee, — coming up from the lake, alert and 
handsome as a young god — did. He saluted the 
little party brightly, and, with the tact of a true gentle- 
man, caught the step with Mr. Phelps and Gerald, 
with never a backward look at the others. They 
were all pacing back and forth when the bell rang for 
breakfast. Mrs. Phelps appeared in the doorway 
before it ceased to tinkle, with a morning greeting to 
the young men. Paul followed her, chatting merrily 
with Mrs. Bartlett. 

“ No ! no ! ” the worthy landlady persisted, shaking 
a reproving finger. I cannot fib on the Sabbath day, 
even for you. Master Paul ! You are a good fisher- 
man, and your father is a better, but we have to thank 
Mr. Lupton for the finest catch of the season, thus 


A GALLANT FIGHT. I57 

far. We always expect something extraordinary from 
him. He was born lucky, I think." 

“ With a patent, self-revolving, silver-plated spoon 
in his mouth ? " The speaker was Mr. Phelps ; his 
tone was suave. I hope we are to have the benefit 
of your example and instructions for some time, Mr. 
Lupton ? I, for one, shall be happy to go to school 
to you." 

I beg that you will not think — " murmured Rex, 
uncertain whether sarcasm or courtesy were intended, 
yet with the uneasy sensation of having been pricked 
somewhere. 

Mrs. Phelps interposed without the appearance of 
interruption: 

“ We will have no discussion of worldly sports to- 
day, but go directly in to breakfast upon fish pre- 
pared as nobody but Mrs. Bartlett can cook them. 
Do you know, Richard — " linking her hand in his 
arm — “ she has promised to teach me how to bake 
trout in cream, exactly as it is done here ? " 

Her husband laughed down at her, — the gleam of 
prideful amusement no one else had from him : 

“ Culinary details are Sunday-er talk than fishing — 
the Apostolic profession — are they ? " 

“ Undoubtedly ! As pertaining to works of neces- 
sity and mercy ! Salome ! Paul ! Gerald ! All of 
you young people ! I serve notice on you here and 
now, that Mrs. Bartlett expects to see you at the five 
o’clo(<c service this afternoon in the parlor. There 
are two clergymen in the house." 

Her ear, more sensitive than Richard’s, heard Rex 
say, low, to Salome : 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


153 

Then will you give me my walk this forenoon ?" 

‘‘ If mamma has no objection,” said the girl 
blithely. 

And mamma, contriving to be found reading in her 
room, half an hour after the abundant breakfast was 
despatched, was invited to make a third in a forest 
stroll. The foreign and un-Freehold fashion of chap- 
eronage had become so natural to mother and daugh- 
ter that the invitation to the latter included both. 
Rex’s ideas on this head were the butt of many sly 
and direct bolts in his native town. People said he 
was afraid to trust himself alone with a spinster lest 
she might propose, and he be without witness to his 
rejection of the offer ; that the manes of his departed 
love demanded this safeguard, and much more re- 
fined pleasantry to the same purpose, most of which, 
in time, sifted through the network of gossipry to 
him. 

Mrs. Phelps consented readily. 

“ Papa, Paul and Mr. Lee are going by boat to the 
Prospect House to. lunch, and would like to offer the 
vacant seat in the second boat to Gerald,” she ob- 
served. “ We — you and I — do not much affect Sun- 
day excursions, you know, so they took it for granted 
we would stay behind. Papa would not leave us, but 
there is a friend at the Prospect House whom he is 
anxious to see, and who goes to-morrow morning. 
Six years of continental life make one careless in 
these respects. I wish it were not so. Althoufh — ” 
with a laugh — “ my forefathers would have thought it 
sinful to spend Sunday morning in the woods, as we 
propose to do, even with such companions as the 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


159 


Bible, Thomas-k-Kempis and Keble. Unless Rex ob- 
jects, we will walk across the carry with the others and 
see them take boat. Papa will be pleased, I am sure.” 

“ I wonder ” — mused Salome aloud, as she gath- 
ered up shawls, gloves and books, — “ if, at your age, 
I shall be as thoughtful of other people’s convenience 
and pleasure as you are ! It is always ‘ what would 
papa like ? ’ or ‘ will this please the children ? ’ How 
does it feel to live entirely out of one’s self ? to be 
conscious of none but a vicarious existence?” 

“ Ask somebody else, my love, — a post-graduate in 
the school of self-abnegation. I am only in the pri- 
mary department, with a formidable array of daily 
demerit marks.” 

She walked over the carry between husband and 
son, sometimes with a hand on the arm of each ; her 
face as cloudless as the sky, her voice mellowed, not 
sharpened, by time, carried by the breeze to the ears 
of the younger and fleeter walkers in front. Several 
times they heard her laugh, and hearty outbursts of 
mirth marked her auditors’ relish of her sallies, 

‘‘ Jolly ! ain’t she ?” Gerald cocked up his eye at 
Hollis Lee to say. “ As good company as a fellow — 
better than all the girlites in the country, although 
Salome is cut out on the same pattern, Mrs, 

Phelps is A No. i, — and always the same, just as you 
see her now.” 

The other nodded assent. 

I was never more agreeably surprised in a woman. 
In Freehold, the impression is that she is less genial 
in disposition than her husband. He is decidedly the 
more popular of the two there.” 


i6o 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Bah ! that’s Freehold, all over ! Because he and 
his ancestors were born in their precious little town- 
ship, and she and hers were not ! He’s all right, of 
course, — as his invitation to me to-day proves, — but she 
can't — be — beat I ” 

He dashed along the road to run, squirrel-like, along 
a log laid outside of the saw-mill they were passing, 
poising himself on the extremest end which projected 
far over the water. 

Look out there, my boy ! *’ shouted Richard warn- 
ingly. 

Rex’s call was strident, almost shrill: 

“ Gerald ! come back this instant ! What are you 
about? ” 

They had all stopped. The saw-mill, picturesque 
in Sabbath stillness ; the lake, dark at the verge with 
shadows of inverted trees standing on their tops in 
fathomless deeps, and beyond the reflections, as pla- 
cid-blue as the heavens it mirrored ; the scent of the 
fresh sawdust; the piles of timber, hewn and rough ; 
in the vista ending in a broader sweep of blue water, 
the boats drawn up on the shore, and the guides, one 
of whom wore a red shirt, motionless beside them, 
all this Salome was to recall in days to come, with the 
qualm of odd heart-sickness caused by the sneer with 
which her father looked from one of the Luptons to 
the other, the impatient twitch he gave his mous- 
tache in checking the impulse to interfere between 
them. 

For Gerald, intuitively appreciating that some of 
the company were in sympathy with him, coolly faced 
his guardian, stood on one foot and balanced himself 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


l6l 

in ballet-dancer attitude, waving his arms dram- 
atically : 

“ Liberty or death ! If you want me, come for me, 
tyrant ! ” 

Beaten and mortified, Rex’s fine breeding did not 
desert him. 

“ Shall we walk on ! ” he said, briefly, to Salome, 
and without another word or look for the recusant 
lad, they took the lead to the landing. 

The trifling episode excited the girl unaccountably. 
Her cheeks burned, her breath came short, and when 
Rex stepped aside to pluck a flower for her, the 
fingers that received it were nervously uncertain. He 
was tranquil in seeming ; his voice, in the few com- 
monplaces exchanged with her, firm and pleasant as 
usual. But he did not notice Gerald, who overtook 
the party before they reached the boats, audaciously 
indifferent to approbation or censure. 

“ It is very kind in you to take him with you,” the 
elder brother said in his chilliest, grand-seigneur 
manner to Mr. Phelps. Had Gerald been four in- 
stead of fourteen years old, he would have been 
spoken of in the same way. “ I hope he will give 
you no trouble.” 

Richard espoused the lad’s cause on the spot. 

“ If he finds no ground of complaint against us^ I 
shall be satisfied. We invite him for our own sakes — 
not for his. Come, my man ! We must be off ! ” 

Eye and emphasis pointed the dissimilarity between 
his estimate of his prot^g^'s digt and consequence, and 
that in which the imperious mentor held him. Gerald 
responded by leaping into the stern; swelling with 


i 62 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


self-conceit, and as aggressively impudent as air and 
looks, without words, could make him. 

Richard kissed wife and daughter, hat in hand, 
Paul following suit. The tall youth had learned 
chivalry of bearing from his father, whose demeanor 
to the women of his family was inimitable. Hollis 
Lee noted and admired it ; Rex — standing apart, as 
usual — was ready, in his chagrin at the Admirable 
Crichton’s treatment of himself, to believe the whole 
performance a hollow sham. He and Richard had 
never been in sympathy with one another ; they were 
fast becoming antipathetic. 

Mrs. Phelps, Salome, and Rex watched the boats 
in silence until they passed behind the nearest bend, 
and, still mutely, turned back. 

“ If you will let me pilot you — ” Rex broke the 
spell with an effort — “ I can take you to a point that 
commands a fine view, with comparatively little 
fatigue.” 

The day was cool and clear. Even in the windless 
woods they climbed comfortably, Rex holding back 
green branches and breaking dry ones that threatened 
garments and hair. A slightly-worn path, invisible to 
the untrained eye, took them to the hill-top, from 
which they saw Round Lake lying like a vast bowl, 
on one hand, and the water-chain, beginning with the 
island-gemmed Upper Saranac, on the other. Every- 
where else were the hills, moveless billows of verdure, 
with, here and there, a bold forehead of rock thrust 
into sight like the head of an inquisitive behemoth. 

Mrs. Phelps preferred a rustic seat fixed in a tree- 
trunk to furthef exploration. She had her books and 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


the prospect, and would need nothing more for hours. 
Only — they must not wander too far away, or forget 
the early dinner. Should they find th?* wonderful 
ice-cavern Paul and Gerald had happened upon 
yesterday, she would like to see it. Had Rex heard 
of, or visited it ? Paul reported tons of solid ice 
packed away by Jack Frost under the shelving rocks. 
They might come back for her, should they happen 
upon it. Always providing it could be reached with- 
out much scrambling and climbing. She had not 
much of the cat about her, and confessed to a prefer- 
ence for safe levels. Salome must look for more 
arbutus, and gather enough for a table-bouquet for 
good Mrs. Bartlett. 

Blessed and convenient beyond the average of the 
race is the woman whose neat neutrality of phrase is 
like a compress to a broken bone and poultices to 
abraded flesh, when nobody else is sufficiently free 
from pain or malease to know what to say! 

The mortifying scenes at saw-mill and landing, the 
reserve that had made their escort unsocial during 
the woodland tramp, were like annoying dreams, 
breaking, scatteringly, with the speed of the spectres 
that beleaguered Prague, before the frank cor- 
diality of chaperonely speech. Since “ Mamma ” 
perceived no occasion for discomfort, did any 
exist ? 

Salome ran back when the two young people had 
gone some scores of paces down the hill, to kiss her 
mother once more. 

“ Darlingest, delightfullest, wisest, divinest of 
created beings ! " she whispered, between a rain of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


>64 

caresses, and flew back to where Rex was waiting for 
her. 

The mo^er remained as motionless as the tree 
behind her, hands clasped on the unopened books in 
her lap, eyes fixed on the two boats, dwindling in the 
distance, Gerald’s white shirt and the red of the 
guide’s making bright specks on the deep blue of the 
still lake. Husband and children fondly vowed that 
she grew younger every year. In the solitude of the 
hill-top, her color waned grayly; sharp lines appeared 
around her mouth and eyes. It was as though a 
warrior had turned aside, unmissed, from the field, 
to doff his harness, and staunch the wound he would 
not have comrade or foe suspect. The holy angels 
might know and pity this woman’s pain, perhaps 
minister to her in her extremity. No mortal ever 
heard her moan. 

Salome’s face was as happy as the sunbright waters, 
when having filled hands and pocket-handkerchiefs 
with arbutus — palest pink-and-white from the winter’s 
sleep and late blossoming under pine-needle coverlets 
— she sat down on the shawl Rex laid over a mossy 
rock, and set about sorting her treasures. 

“ I wish it were possible to supply you with them 
all the year round,” Rex said, regretfully. “ No other 
flower suits you so well.” 

She received the remark as something wholly im- 
personal. 

“ I fail to see the analogy between them and a girl 
who has grown up in a semi-tropical latitude, as the 
petted daughter of a luxurious home — who has had 
nothing but summer weather. You know,” — touching 


A GALLANT FIGH7\ 


165 


the perfumed pallor of the heap lightly, lest she might 
bruise it — “ they will not be domesticated. A Bland- 
ford woman, whom we met abroad, told me that the 
finest arbutus she ever saw covered a hill near that town. 
School-children and all sorts of excursion parties 
flocked out there, year after year, to gather it, and 
the more they carried off the more it flourished. At 
last, the owner of the hill, where nothing else pretty 
grew, and nothing was cultivated, got tired of being 
‘ overrun with people that did him no good,' so he 
fenced in the great field, and put up boards to warn 
off trespassers. The next spring after this was done, 
the ground was all rosy and sweet wjth arbutus that 
nobody came to pick ; the year after, there was not 
one-tenth as much ; in three years it had all died, as 
of a broken heart. Not a spray or root can be found 
there now — only a stony common, where even sheep 
would starve.” 

Rex had thrown himself at full-length on the 
ground, resting on his elbow, his head on his hand. 

“ I have not altered my opinion,” he said, smiling 
quietly. “ If you would shake it, you must give me 
some other reason than the perverse desire of your 
favorites to make people happy.” 

Her cheeks dimpled and flushed, but she answered 
simply and gratefully : 

“Thank you for the graceful compliment ! I prize 
it the more because you don’t make a practice of 
doing such things.” 

She went on with the work of selecting and arrang- 
ing the blossoms. A pine tree spread a wide tent of 
shade about her ; vertical sun-rays glanced and shiv- 


i66 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


ered against the glossy needles ; each bough was 
tipped with upright shoots, greenish-white, delicate and 
slender. Salome likened them to wax candles, sock- 
eted in readiness for the “ spring opening.” Tufts of 
tender verdure lighted the blackish-green of the hem- 
locks ; the larches were hung with green bells and 
purplish “knops,” like the tabernacle-veil. Nature 
prayed dumbly on her altared hills, this perfect Sab- 
bath-day. The Lord was in His holy temple, and 
all the earth kept silence before Him. 

Then and there, the knowledge of a new life awoke 
in the soul of the lonely man ; the heart that had 
dwelt in the shadow of a grave for. six years came 
out into the air and sunshine of God’s world of love 
and beauty, exultant in the surprise of discovering 
that they were still his ; that the chrism of pain does 
not (praised be the All-merciful !) set forever apart 
him who receives it from the hope of future joy. 


CHAPTER IX. 


R ev. RUFUS LEE and his wife returned from 
their summer vacation of one month (the same 
being duly and sacredly stipulated in his “ call ”) 
the second week in September. Ten days thereafter, 
they were bidden to take tea with Mrs. Fitchett, the 
richest woman in the North Hill Church, and she a 
widow. She still held her membership there, although 
she had built a smart mansion on the West Side of 
Freehold, the corner-stone of which was laid six 
weeks after her husband relaxed his hold upon the 
wealth he had scraped together. His “ relict was 
ambitious of certain things he had despised as unre- 
munerative — notably, show and social position. 

The September sun was at its sickliest height that 
day, and the red brick house had absorbed so much 
caloric that at six o’clock it seemed to palpitate and 
radiate like a monstrous live coal. The nearest 
shade-trees were in the Phelps grounds, which ad- 
joined Mrs. Fitchett’s. She had a fine clump of oaks 
and maples felled to make room for her conservatory, ^ 
and built a spindle-shanked tower with a flanged 
wheel at top, over a lovely natural spring bubbling 
out of a dingle back of the hill on which the house 
stood, thus securing a supply of living water for 
family use. She “ couldn’t abide the thought of 
reservoir stuff.” That her spring sluiced off the 
167 


i68 


A CALLANT FIGHT. 


drainage of her establishment and her neighbors', 
borrowing sparkle from sewer-gas, she could never be 
made to believe. In the teeth of two cases of typhoid 
in the first year of her residence in the fashionable 
quarter, and numberless visitations of malarial disor- 
ders to her household, she held to the opinion that the 
“beaded” element pumped by the windmill through 
the leaden arteries of her home was the elixir of life 
by comparison with that drawn by the chartered ser- 
vice of the town from a mountain lake, twenty miles 
away from sewers and paper, woollen, and chemical 
“ works.” 

Goblets of the ice-cold elixir were passed in the 
parlors before supper was served, by the hostess’s own 
fat hands. 

“ You ain’t by no means addicted to water, I know, 
Mrs. Lee,” she said pointedly, going in front of her 
and reaching across to offer the silver tray to the 
pastor. “ I was a-sayin’ to somebody th’ other day, 
how peculiar-tastical you was in that respec’. I 
don’ recollec’ as I ever saw you take a drop of the 
limpin’ elerment in my house. You look’s hot’s fire 
too, this blessed minnit. I’m sure you’re thirsty an’ 
won’t tell it.” 

“ My good wife has a fad of not drinking between 
meals,” Mr. Lee interposed before his spouse could 
get an answer together. “ She loses much when she 
does not yield to this temptation ! ” replacing the 
emptied half-pint goblet upon the tray. 

The act was one of many that made the incumbent 
of the North Hill Church popular. He believed in the 
unwholesomeness of filtered drainage as thoroughly 


A GAL'LAArr FIGHT. 


169 


as did his wife, and had an equal horror of numb- 
ing the digestive organs by copious imbibitions of 
cold water. It was a standing joke in his family that 
he carried quinine capsules in his pocket, and stole the 
opportunity to swallow one during each call at “ the 
Fitchett Folly,” as the flaming structure was slyly 
named through the country-side. But he was born 
in the cloth, having been brought up in a rural par- 
sonage. His wife was an importation. She was a 
pretty little woman, better born and of gentler breed- 
ing than her husband, with great wistful eyes, blue as 
a baby’s, delicate features, and much sweetness and 
intelligence of expression. She wore white this 
afternoon — an India muslin, trimmed with lace, toler- 
ated by the North Hill “ people ” because, as was 
carefully explained by her friends, it was a part of 
her trousseau. 

“ You look real girlish in white,” remarked Mrs. 
Greene, another parishioner, who sat on the sofa with 
her. “ Somebody was askin’ of me th’ other night 
to the church-sociable, ‘ if that young lady in white 
muslin ’n’ blush-roses was a bride.’ ” 

Everybody laughed, and Mrs. Lee blushed. 

Youth is a fault time will cure,” she returned 
lightly. “ Blondes do not wear so well as darker 
women who may look older up to thirty, then change 
little until fifty.” 

“ That’s so ! ” responded Mrs. Fitchett, whose skin 
was opaque, and her hair coarse and black. “ You’ve 
gone off quite a good deal since you come to taber- 
nacle ’mong us, ’s you may say. Better make th’ 
best o’ your milk-’n’-roses while they last. We 


170 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


brunettes soon get the better o’ you fair-complected 
ones. Your kind o’ good looks is only skin-deep — 
what you might call remini sce^it." 

Without definite intention of wounding her, or of 
being uncivil, the North Hill people adopted this tone 
of frank depreciation of their minister’s wife. They 
had taken stock in him and his, and, having paid for 
it, bulled and beared it as independent shareholders 
had a right to do. The church was a bonded corpor- 
ation in which every pew-owner had interest and vote. 
The pastor was salaried to run it according to orders, — 
but always on business principles. In some latitudes, 
he would have been bishop and shepherd ; a leader, 
beloved for his works’ sake, enshrined in the hearts 
of his flock as brother, friend and teacher, — knitted 
to their souls by golden links, each of them a memory 
of the comfort he had brought in their affliction, 
sympathy in joy, light in darkness, of the sweetest 
loves of earth and the holiest hopes of heaven. That 
was “ not the Freehold way of doing things.” When 
that was said, an end was put to all controversy. 

“ I never weary of the prospect from this window,” 
Mr. Lee observed at this juncture, playing buffer to 
the clicking balls. Incautiously, as presently ap- 
peared, he ventured upon a figure of speech (pro- 
fessional). It elevates the soul, broadens one’s 
mental and spiritual views to dwell on such a scene.” 

That’s true ’s gospel ! ” ejaculated the hostess, 
hastening to join his look-out in the bay-window, 
which, being on the north side of the house, could be 
opened without damage to the fervid dyes of the 
velvet carpets. '' Why, only yest’day, I diskivered that 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


171 

you can see that new barn of the Gilseys with the 
cupilow, much 's four mile off. I was that pleased I 
for I set a deal o’ store by Miss Gilsey. She’s a first 
cousin o’ my latter husband, an’ ’t seemed to me she 
was quite neighboreous when I caught sight of the 
cardinal-red roof ’n’ the gilt weather-cocker o’ that 
barn. He’s built him a paladin of a place there, up 
onto Forest Ledge, but, ‘dear me!’ says I to her 
oncet, ‘ I wouldn’t be hired to live out there, two 
mile from the railroad ’n’ no store nor church nearer 
’n Freehold ! ’ I’m secluded enough from my church, 
goodness knows ! In hot weather, sech ’s we had in 
Joone, befo’ I went t’ th’ sea-shore ’n’ Saratogy, 
’twarnt an easy thing to be on han’ in my pew, Sunday 
mornin’, 'n’ last winter I did romance inter the West 
Hill a couple o’ times ! ” 

A chorus of exclamations interrupted her. 

“Just hear her now !” from Mrs. Greene. 

“ See you don’t do it again ! ” Mrs. Emmons. 

“ Now, dear Mrs. Fitchett, don’t break our hearts ! ” 
from Mrs. Tom Johnston, whose husband made his 
money (in the hide-and-leather business) so long ago 
that Freehold condoned the interpolated on her 
visiting-cards, although the Sam Johnsons, who lived 
on the old farm a little way out of town, repudiated 
the genteel consonant. 

A basso undertow swept back the treble surge. 

“ Th’ Old North Hill wouldn’t bear that f’ more’n 
a couple o’ weeks ! ” protested Deacon Emmons. 

Mr. Greene belonged to the Parish Committee, and 
threatened a formal petition from that hierarchy, 
should heat or cold ever rob the Mother Church of 


172 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


one of its pillars (he pronounced it “ pillows") even 
temporarily. As Superintendent of Public Schools, 
Mr. Greene leaned heavily on polysyllables. 

Somebody hinted ’n my bearin’, the other day, 
that you hed some notion o’ ’tendin’ the toney church 
since you’d moved over here amongst the quality." 

Mr. West, whose wife had not yet formulated her 
protest, made himself heard in this malapropos obser- 
vation. His partner tittered a dutiful second to his 
chuckle. Nobody else was amused. Some looked 
frightened, others black. Mrs. Fitchett bridled and 
bristled all over. People that are most astonished 
that others should take their plain-speaking to heart, 
are readiest to resent innuendoes. The widow, 
although pachydermatous, purpled vividly. 

“ ’Pon my word, Mr. West, I flatter myself I heven’t 
any call to jine any church for to git good sassiety ! " 
fanning herself violently. “ Thet’s what I said only 
week befo’ last to Mrs. Richard Phelps, when I was 
a-callin’ on her. I told her we hedn’t the name o’ 
being aristocratical ’n’ th’ Ole North Hill, as they hez 
’ll the Wes’ Side. ‘ But,’ sez I, ‘ people whose 
social statue is secure, don’ need to trust to church- 
relations for prestyge. I’ve presided in Freehold 
ever since I were born,’ sez I, ‘ an’ my descendants 
before me, an’ my parrents substantiative citizens,’ 
sez I, ‘as all the town ken testivify. Folks know 
who they was^ an’ who / be^ I guess, by this time, or 
they’re ’mazin’ dull schollards, Mrs. Plfelps,’ sez I." 

“ Do tell ! Well ! of all the c’rageous ladies as 
ever I see, to lay down the lor to her, that way ! ’’ 
cried Mrs. Emmons. 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT. 


173 


‘‘ For the Land’s sake ! ” — Mrs. West. 

“ I want t’ know ! ” sighed Mrs. Johnston, in 
envious admiration. 

Fidelia Fitchett, an overdressed damsel of fifteen, 
had her word of corroboration : 

“ I X.q\\ you, Mother was even with her, every time ! 
She just gave it to her, right ’n’ left ! ” 

Here was a juicy tid-bit ! The widow, restored to 
smiles by the sensation excited by her audacious 
repartee, waved off breathless inquirers with radiant 
appreciation of the value of her communication. 

Supper is ready ! ” she announced coquettishly. 
“You’d ruther eat nor gossip, any time o’ day — 
wouldn’ you } Mr. Lee ! will you consign me your 
arm, an’ let Mr. West bring your lady ? The rest o’ 
you ken pair off ’s you like. The hall ain’t what 
might be called an amyrinth, exactly. Let’s go ’n’ 
see what the neighbors hez sent in ! ” 

The concluding original formula was a favorite with 
the rich woman. As understood by herself and her 
toadies, it conveyed an adroit insinuation of the 
abundant provision made by her own purse for feed- 
ing her friends, — a Rembrandtish cartoon, throwing 
out one main truth by massing shadows behind it. 
She, who could never by the most extravagant sketch 
of imagination be pictured as the recipient of elee- 
mosynary aid, could afford to dally with the 
figure. 

The table was laden with silver, glass, porcelain, 
and edibles. 

“ We still cohere to the old Yankee costume o’ 
settin’ most everything there is to eat before you at 


174 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT, 


oncet,” she said, in proud humility, as, having put 
broiled chicken, tongue, and fried potatoes on a plate 
for Mrs. Lee, who sat at her left as Mr. Lee’s vis-a-vis^ 
she proceeded to encompass the central trenches with 
saucerlfngs of currant jelly, raw tomatoes, lobster- 
salad, pickled oysters, and succotash. “ I ain’t hed 
a meal to Mrs. Phelps’ yet, but I’m informed by 
creditable witnesses that there’s nothin’ on to her 
table to eat when the family sits down to it, without 
its glasses, silver, and china, ’n’ the flower-piece in 
the middle. Everything — even the wines — is handed 
by her colored man from the booffctie^ — if you please, 
French fashion ! ” 

“ ‘ Deejiay a la Rods' it’s called,” said Miss Fidelia. 
“ It’s all the style now with the big-bugs an’ howlin’ 
swells in N’York an’ Bosston.’ ” 

“ ‘ Roose ’ be kicked ! ” sneered the energetic 
mother. “ I call it disgustin’ humbug, ’n’ enough 
fur to make Dick Phelps’s father squirm in his grave. 
That come o’ Dick’s marryin’ a Baltimore high-flyer, 
'stead of a smart, sensible Yankee girl, what would 
help him keep his money, not perpetrate it out o’ 
winder by the double han’ful.” 

She had packed and surrounded every plate by 
now, and the board presented the appearance of a 
succession of planetary systems — a series of orreries, 
with an equitable distribution of satellites. 

‘‘ I hev’n’t much ’f ’n’ appetite myself,” she pursued 
when the rest — the first having waited in solemn 
anxiety for the last to be helped — fell to work with 
military precision upon the bountiful “ feed.” “ By 
the time I’ve got up a company-supper, ’t seems t’ me. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 175 

I’ve hed my share on it. So ’f you like, I’d go on 
with th’ story o’ my visit to Lady Phelps.” 

“ Do, do ! ” cried the women in unison. The men, 
too busy to articulate, nodded approbation. 

Mrs. Fitchett had a reputation as a wit in her set, 
even with those who were aware that, as Mrs. Greene 
put it confidentially to her husband, “ the dear lady 
now an’ then slipped up on a long word.” She said 
rude things with a dash, and rollicked over platitudes 
until they stole character from her relishful mounting. 
She had shed widow’s weeds in the third year after 
her Amasa’s demise. Prolonged mourning was de- 
precated by Freeholders as useless and sentimental. 
It helped nobody, and was, if not expensive, shabby ; 
if not shabby, expensive. Moreover, it did not show 
for what it cost. Nobody understood better than the 
“ Widow Fitchett, her as was Almira Day,” — her dis- 
position to marry again, provided a “ sootable pardner” 
offered. She jested freely of “ No. 2 ” in her only 
child’s hearing, and even regretted audibly that he 
had not “ turned up ” in time to share the trouble 
and care of building the big new house on the West 
Side. Being belated, he must be satisfied with things 
as he found them. 

She was clad, this evening, in a black grenadine 
elaborately wrought with gilt daisies, much larger 
than life. Hollis Lee, on seeing it in church, de- 
scribed it as a “ joint memorial to Nos. i and 2. 
Black was for the one ; the gilt betokened her spring- 
ing hopes of finding the other.” The gown was 
elaborately trimmed with black lace, dotted with gilt. 
Her fan matched it ; her sleek black hair was 


176 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


braided greasily at the back of her head and fastened 
with. a gilt comb ; her ornaments were an onyx-and- 
gold necklace and bracelets of the same. In her ears 
dangled diamond pendants, and her fingers were 
studded with stones of various kinds — all large. She 
“ believed in clothes that looked real rich, and no 
mistake about it.” 

Alternately fluttering her fan and supping hot tea 
that made moist the magenta glow induced by much 
blood and the sultriness of a room a-blaze with gas — 
she put forth the tale : 

“ I took F’delia with me, seein’ there was young 
folks in the fam’ly, ’n’ I wanted they should under- 
stand I felt to want to be sociable. , The colored man 
come to th’ door quick 's I ring the bell. Most too 
ambitious he was, for I’d ’a’ liked to hev spied about 
a little. The piazzer was cluttered up with chairs ’n’ 
work-baskets, ’n’ little tables with books ’n’ flower- 
vases onto ’em, quite regardless, for all the world like 
a garden-scene at the theayter. Jes’ ’s ’t use’ to be 
when she had charge o’ the ole house before, ’s I’ve 
heard. We was a-livin’ down-town then, ’n’ F’delia 
she was little, ’n’ the twins I lost was babies, ’n’ it 
Stan’s to reason ’s I hedn’t time to waste caparisonin’ 
about town to call on strangers. But, seein’ tliey’d 
jes’ moved in nex’ door, it was my dooty for t’ make 
the firs’ visit with ’em, let what might come o’ the 
’quaintance afterwards. Yes ! Mrs. Phelps was to 
home, the young man said, solemn ’s a judge, yet 
kinder chipper-like too, but Miss Phelps, she hed 
gone to ride. So, he took our cards on to a silver 
waiter, ’n’ bowed us inter the parlor, an’ went off to 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


177 


look her up. Sech comical parlors I never see in all 
my life, ’n’ I’ve been about inter nice houses 's much 
’s the next one. Floor, all bare boards, ’s slippery 's 
glass, with rugs, big ’n’ little, dispersin’ all over it ; 
sofas an’ chairs .0’ all kinds, — no two alike, standin’ 
’round in no sort of order ; some cushioned with silk, 
some velvet, some bamboo. ’Twas enough for to 
give a furnitoore-dealer a spazzum to look at ’em. An’ 
easels stuck in corners, an’ out in the room, piled with 
pictures, some of ’em with Injy scarfs looped across 
the corners of the frames. Scraps ’n’ breadths o’ 
soft silky stuffs ketched up on corners everywhere, 
an’ streakin’ ’cross things gen’rally. A marble 
woman in one corner, with a curtain behind her, 
an’ no clothes to speak of, on her, an’ her finger 
on her mouth, ’s if to warn you not t’ inquire the 
name o’ the pawnbroker what hed the balance o’ her 
twilight — ” 

A laugh, loud and long, broke the continuity of 
the story. 

You ought to enter the editorial profession, Mrs. 
Fitchett,” said Mr. Greene, heavily gallant. ‘‘ Your 
talents are wasted in private life. Mrs. Lea, may I 
assist you to butter ? Go on, my dear madam! go on ! ” 

“ Where was I ? ” still shaking from the effects of 
her own wit. “ Oh ! the statute in the corner ! Then 
there was bronze liggers ’n jars painted like the Irids 
— an’ th’ Land knows what besides. I hedn’t seen 
half befo’ my lady swims in, like a sizable ghost, all 
in white, like our marble friend, but more of ’m, you 
understand I White cashmere, or nun’s veiling, or 
somethin’ woolly, and not a mite o’ stiffenin’ into it. 


178 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


Not a speck o’ jewelry on, without ’twas her weddin’ 
’n’ engagement rings. Instead of a breas’pin, a bow 
of white Chiny silk ’n’ lace, with a sprig o’ mignonette 
caught, kind o’ careless, in it. ‘ How do you do, Mrs. 
Fitchett ? ’ sez she ” — an unsuccessful attempt at mim- 
icry of voice and accent. ‘‘You know the low-an’- 
smooth tongues of Southern and traveled women. 
‘ You are very kind to call s’ soon,’ sez she, when we’d 
shook hail’s, an’ I’d interdoosed F’delia. ’S much ’s 
to say, I’d put myself forrard — don’t you see ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” interjected Mrs. Lee, involuntarily. “ I 
don't think she meant that ! I have no doubt she was 
really gratified by your early call.” 

Her husband gave her a swift, monitory glance. 
The chorus of matrons broke out in full accord : 

“ Not she ! ” 

“ Don’t you believe it!” 

“ That ain’t her kind ! ” 

“ Not that she wasn’t awful civil ! ” Mrs. Fitchett 
added, hardly deigning to notice the inopportune plea. 
“ But ’twas plain ’s th’ nose on your face that ’twasn’t 
no more ’n skin-deep. She made conversation, straight 
along, all th’ while I was there, pickin’ out subjec’s 
she thought ’d int’rest me, ’n’ askin’ F’delia ’bout her 
school ’n’ all that, in the worldly way some people 
hez, behavin’ jist th’ same t’ everybody, you know, ’n’ 
no sincerity in none of it. She hez th’ gift o’ th’ gab 
t’ perfection. I’ve heard it said that she always eludes 
to her husban’ ’s ‘ Mr. Phelps ’ to everybody, ’n’ I 
went considerable out o’ my way to name him ’s 
‘ Richard,’ ’n’ then t’ ’pologize f’ the liberty, sayin’ ’s 
how I’d went to school with him when we was chil- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


179 


(Iren together, ’n’ t’ slipped out before I was awares. 
An’ sez she, ‘ He enjoys the return to his old home and 
friends more than I ca^gffiglSil you. I am glad you re- 
member him as a boy.’ That gave me a chance I’d 
been a-watchin’ for’ t’ speak of his health ’n’ the cir- 
cumstances o’ his exileodus from his parential resi- 
dence, ’ll’ how it must ’a’ been quite a harrow to her^ 
t’come back, considerin’ th’ fatalistic accidence t’ her 
frien’, — ’n’ her a beautiful young lady that was like a’ 
nadopted sister to her, — I’d understood. 

“ ‘ We are all well content to settle down at last in a 
home of our own,’ sez she, low ’n’ smooth ’s cashmere 
bouquet soap-lather. ‘ We have been tossed about 
in the world for so long that we fully appreciate rest, 
plenty of room — and Freehold. Is it because I have 
not seen it for so long that it seems unusually beauti- 
ful for this season ? Is not September generally dry 
and hot ? ’ 

“ Do what I would, there was no tollin’ her back t’ 
the accidence. I’ve allers been that cnnoMS to git hold 
o’ the peticklers that I had counted on drawin’ them 
out o’ her, she bein’ one o’ the principles in it, ’s you 
may say. By-’n’-bye, I s’posed they’d take the ole 
Phelps pew in the West Side Church, seein’ ’s how 
Richard’s gran’father hed a-founded it, ’s one might 
say, but that I wished they could see ther way to takin’ 
a seat with us. I reprersented how our minister was 
an eloquenter speaker ’n’ ole Dr. Denison,” — pausing 
to bob her head grimacingly at the pastor. 

Thank you, Mrs. Fitchett. You are very good, I 
am sure ! ” murmured the unlucky official, trying to 
look flattered. 


i8o 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ Oh, yes ! We all speak up for you behind your 
back, no matter what our genuwine opinions maybe — ” 
jocularly. “ My lady didn’t seem t’ care for conver- 
sation on spiritooal subjecks. That’s the nat’ral effect 
o’ foreign life, I s’pose. Said she had not met Mr. 
Lee, but hoped to hev the pleasure, ’n’ so forth ’n’ so 
forth, more polite lies, you know, run off her tongue, 
like reelin’ yarn by machinery. Then ’twas that I 
worked in that about aristocratical sassiety. It riled 
me to see her slip out o’ corners I’d put her in, and 
twist the talk out o’ my fingers when I’d got it where 
I wanted it should be, and me not able to hinder her.” 

“ What did she say ? ” came from three listeners at 
once. 

Mrs. Fitchett struck the call-bell for the maid to 
change the plates, directing the process assiduously 
and audibly, and too intent upon it to pursue her nar- 
rative until peaches, ice-cream, and four varieties of 
cake were served and dispensed by her brisk hands, 
with the impartial celerity that had marked the former 
distribution. 

The room was stiflingly warm ; the hot, unctuous 
vapors of the “ hearty supper ” seemed, to Mrs. Lee’s 
apprehension, to condense viscidly upon perspiring 
faces. Fly-nets in every window and door banished 
all hope of relief from the cooler night without. The 
tawdry house, the glaring vulgarity of the mistress, the 
sycophantic guests, were parts of the odious whole of 
her present mode of existence. But that she iliust 
listen to this spiteful fanfaronade of low gossip, and, 
by her silence, lend countenance to what every right 
and ladylike instinct condemned, was hardest of all. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


i8r 


The coarse, unmodulated voices racked her senses. 
The men’s were loud and hard, the younger women’s 
clatter was like that of sparrows in nesting-time ; that 
of the older resembled the clash and chatter of shaken 
pebbles. Sick, soul and body, she trifled with the 
fast-melting ice on her costly saucer, and tried not to 
hear. 

Her husband dared not look at her, and, sure though 
she was of his sympathy, she did not ignore the truth 
that hers was the heavier burden of the two. For one 
thing, he had grown up in the harness ; for another, 
everybody liked him after a fashion, and the pride of 
the parish in his talents and flne personal presence 
alleviated his trials. Pride and liking were judiciously 
disguised lest he might become pampered and pre- 
sumptuous above what was written as becoming in one 
who was the servant of his brethren, but he was not 
ignorant how they felt under the crust of discretion. 
Then, too, he had his work — a mission which he loved 
with his whole heart, the Lord’s work, however per- 
verted in exercise by man’s devices. So far as his 
helpmeet could discern, he would have been more 
popular and useful without her, more free to act where 
he was, freer to stay or to go as Providence might 
indicate, if not hampered by a family. She was get- 
ting to be heretical on the point of the married clergy, 
and to have grave doubts on others she had been too 
ready to accept as postulates. For example, was she 
suffering the Lord’s will or the devil’s guile in submit- 
ting to the insolent patronage of purse-proud vul- 
garians whose orbits she would never have crossed 
had she married a member of any other profession 


i 82 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


or craft? She endured hourly humiliation, lost 
social caste, hungered and thirsted intellectually, 
risked the lowering of moral and mental tone by 
the enforced reception of the patronage of those 
who were her inferiors in all save worldly wealth. 
What divine end was subserved by eating this woman’s 
supper, and submitting to her impertinent humors, 
dancing attendance upon her whims, in short, joining 
the ignoble band of her boot-licks, and getting many 
a kick while thus prostrate — because the patron hired 
an expensive pew, and contributed liberally to the 
church’s support ? And the subservience of pastor and 
partner must be the more abject for the menace of her 
secession at any moment were she to imagine herself 
offended or neglected. 

The poor little pastoress suffered degradation in 
her own eyes while asking and answering these que- 
ries. If this were doing God service — 

“ Mrs. Lee ! you ain’t hardly touched your cake !” 
rasped the high, harsh voice at her ear. “ I’m sorry 
if tain’t to your taste. I’ve quite a name for cake- 
makin’ in New England, but I presume likdy the 
New York cooks is better.” 

“ Thank you, Mrs. Fitchett ! The cake is delicious, 
but I have a slight headache, and I am afraid that 
sweets are not good for it.” 

dretful subjeck to headaches, ain’t you? 
’T seems to me that it’s a pity minister’s wives should 
be so delicate. I don’t b’lieve there’s a well one in 
town.” 

“ Her general health is excellent,” Mr. Lee was 
goaded to assert. “ These headaches are constitu- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


183 

tional and hereditary. Her mother had them until 
she was nearly fifty, then outlived them entirely, so 
we live in hope. You have excelled yourself in this 
banana-cake, Mrs. Fitchett. May I be so rude as to 
help myself to a second slice ? " 

This was heroic, as his wife knew. He disliked the 
odor and taste of bananas, but Mrs. Fitchett had in- 
vented the “ filling ” between the layers of this pile of 
cake, — a mush of bruised banana and mMngue that 
was not improved in flavor by the hot weather. She 
had lauded her achievement, and pressed the delicacy 
— literally, ad 7iausea7n — upon her guests. In the 
throb of grateful appreciation of her husband’s politic 
stroke, that swelled the little woman’s heart almost to 
tears, she revoked one clause of her heretical protest. 
She might be in favor of a celibate clergy as a class, 
but she was devoutly glad that one theologue had 
fallen in love with and married her. 

Now ain’t we never to hev the rest o’ that story? ” 
Mrs. Greene bethought herself to say, when they had 
adjourned from the table to the comparatively toler- 
able atmosphere of the parlors. “ It will be real nice 
an' appropriate, ’most like a nillustrated lectur, to 
hear Mrs. Fitchett tellin’ about ’em, in her witty way, 
an’ we in full sight o’ the Phelpses’ house ’n’ groun's. 
There’s somethin’ goin’ on over there this evenin’, 
airf’t there ? I see a lot o’ folks, all dressed up, on 
the piazza.” 

“ Oh, nothin' more’n common, I guess,” said Mrs. 
Fitchett carelessly, contriving to convey the impres- 
sion that she would have been invited were there bid- 
den guests. “ Most likely the Luptons, ’n’ maybe 




A GALLANT FIGHT. 


184 

Mr. Hollis Lee. I presume that’s why he couldn’t 
accept my invite this evenin’ — ” wheeling so suddenly 
upon the pastor that he changed color. ‘‘ They say 
he’s always hangin’ about the Phelpses. After the 
girl, I guess. If she’s such a highflier ’s her mother, 
she won’t look at him'' 

“ My brother met Mr. Phelps and family in the Adi- 
rondacks, last spring, and they became very good 
friends, I believe,” the clergyman had the dignity to 
reply. ‘‘ I did not inquire what his engagement 
was for to-night. I know he is quite busy just 
now.” 

An equivocation this, since Hollis had volunteered 
the information that he had promised to dine with Mr. 
Phelps. The wife condoned the evasion. When 
hard-pressed between policy and conscience, what 
can even the righteous do ? 

‘‘ Often ’s not they hev’ tea ’n’ coffee paraded on 
thepiazzer after their heathenish late dinner,” contin- 
ued the hostess. “ That privet-hedge on the right 
pretty nigh hides the hull place, but from my bed- 
room winder, I ken see a roun’ table set out on the 
piazzer, any fine evenin’, with the cups ’n’ saucers, ’n’ 
them a-lollin’ ’roun’, drinkin’ somethin’. She decocts 
the tea ’n’ coffee out there over a spirit-lamp, ’n’ 
there’s allers somebody besides the fam’ly to help dis- 
pose of it. I hed a woman t’ clean for me last week, 
that hed helped settle ’em, ’n’ she told me some o’ 
their queer doin’s. They hed some New York folks 
to dine with ’em one day ’n’ hed eighteen courses, this 
Mrs. Graley bein’ engaged to wash dishes ’n’ so forth. 
There was six sorts o’ wine, she sez, ’n’ the last 


A (^AZLANT FIGHT. 185 

course of all was grass! Some fancy kind, as Mrs. 
Graley never see before.” 

“ I want t’ know ! ” uttered Mrs. Tom Johnston, 
tiptoeing to peep over the envious hedge. ‘‘ I can 
make out three or four white dresses, and one or two 
gentlemen.” 

“ Mrs. Lupton wears white at home, now, — with 
black ribbons, of course — poor thing ! / know how 

to feel for her. The year — or two years, if she takes 
a fancy to distend mournin’ so far — when a widder 
don’t go inter sassiety, is the dolefullest time of her 
mortial career. Mrs. Lupton hez behaved real duti- 
ful to her husban’s mem’ry, 'n’ she a youngish 
woman still, 'n' him so much older ! Tain’t to be ex- 
pected that she’d take the hull course o’ mournin’ in 
reg’lar order, but I admire to see her do it, all the 
same. An’ her adoration t’ them children is just 
sweet-pretty. I only hope ’n’ pray ther ain’t more 
trouble in store for her. I didn’t mention that we 
met young Rex goin’ inter the Phelpses jest ’s we come 
out, did I ? ” 

“ No ? ” 

“ You don’t say ! ” 

“ I want to know ! ” 

“ Ah-ha-a-a! ” 

This last interjection, long-drawn into significance 
between Mrs. West’s leathery lips. 

I declare to goodness you could ’a’ overset me 
with a feather when me ’n’ F’delia a’most colluded 
with him on the piazzer-steps ! ” expatiated the host- 
ess. “ ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Lupton ! ’ sez My Lady, 
brave 's brass, but 1 see her eyelids quiver. 'N' 


i86 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


he, not a word 's usual, — only lifted his hat in his 
stiff way and drawed himself up to one side to let us 
go by ! Me, that hez known him sence he was 
christianed, ’n’ his father ’n’ my sainted Amasahevin’ 
thousan’s o’ dollars o’ dealin’s together when both of 
'em was alive ! 

“ So — ‘ How-dye-do, Rex ? ’ sez I, very emphati- 
cal, meanin’ as both on ’em sh’d understan’ that 
Almira Fitchett’s risible organs see through the hy- 
pocrisy o’ that meachin’ ‘ Mr. Lupton ! ’ I ain’t sot 
eyes on you in a dog’s age,’ sez I. ‘ But I ’spose 
new frien’s hez the advantages over ole ones ! ’ ” 

“ You hed him there,” rumbled Mr. Tom Johnston, 
with as much energy as supper had left him. “To 
see that boy walk the streets of his natyve town, 
you’d think he didn’t care to know a human in it. 
Very different — very dissimilar, indeed, from his la- 
mented father ! ” 

“ He was fair flabbergasted ’s you might say, by my 
little slap in th’ face,” resumed Mrs. Fitchett, with 
the complacency of a small mind in a malicious action. 
“ He raised his hat again, ’n’ mumbled somethin’ ’bout 
‘ claims o’ business that left little time for social 
pleasures.’ 

“ An’ up speaks My Lady Phelps in her level- 
’n’-smooth-’s-butter voice: ‘ I farncy none o’ Mr. 
Lupton’s frien’s see ’s much o’ him as they could 
wish,’ sez she. “ His incessant application to 
business gives them all cause of complaint,’ sez she. 
‘Farncy!’ that’s the way she said it — too affected 
’n’ English for anything ! So, off we come ’n’ in he 
walked ! Or, ruther, they sot down on the piazzer, 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


187 


together, as plastic ’n’ snug ’s could be, as reclused 
behind them thick vines ’s they would 'a’ been in the 
house with the doors shut. Nigh 'pon 'n hour later, 
I see Richard Phelps pass on horseback with his son 
'n’ daughter, on their way home. An’ them two hed 
hed all that time to themselves ! ’Twont take much 
more o’ that sort o’ carryin’ on to start the ole stories 
a-goin’ again’ ! ” 

Mrs. Lee’s eyes were round with horrified bewilder- 
ment. “ But I have thought — I have understood — 
wasn’t he betrothed to her friend who died ? Mrs. 
Phelps must be so much older than Mr. Lupton — I 
don’t in the least comprehend ! ” she stammered. 

The coterie stared at her ; some patronizingly, some 
contemptuously. The men grinned and winked at 
each other; the women cleared their throats and 
sniffed. 

“ She ain’t up to all the ins and outs o' human 
depravity, is she?” said Mrs. Tom Johnston to the 
black-and-gilt widow: 

“ She’s a new-comer, you know,” said her friend, 
compassionate of the disqualification to enter into the 
hidden things of Freehold scandal. “ ’Taint my way 
for to open folks’ eyes to what ain’t overly-healthy ’n’ 
prudent to be talked about. But ’twont do for you to 
be too innercent, Mrs. Lee. You’ll be puttin' your 
foot into it th’ first thing you know, an' gettin’ your 
husban' into trouble, like’s not. A minister’s wife 
hed ought to be posted on dangerous topics. That 
Mis§ Bayard was engaged to this Rex Lupton, ’n’ he 
only a boy, you may say, of three ’n’ twenty, ’n’ she a 
ravin’ beauty the Phelpses had taken to live with 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


1 88 

them, — an heiress from the South. She rid like a 
circus-woman, ’n’ hed all sorts o’ accomplishments, 
’n’ gay ’s a lark. Smart ’s a steel-trap, too, with eyes 
like stars that looked right through you, an’ a haughty 
way with her that made nothin’ o’ nobody. What 
she took up with that slinky boy for, nobody couldn’t 
make out, ’n’ as for him, anybody could see he 
thought ’s much, ’f not more, o’ Mrs. Phelps, ’s he 
done o’ the girl she meant to make him marry.” 

“ She made the match ! no doubt about it ! ” 
chimed in Mrs. Greene, who was a factory-girl at the 
time of Marion Bayard’s death, and had only seen her 
on the street, as she herself passed back and forth 
to her work. 

“Of course ! ” impatiently. “ She wanted that the 
girl should be pervided with a husban’, and to keep 
him danglin’ ’roun’ hei’ at any price. For, there was 
Richard Phelps — ’s indulgent a husban’ ’s ever 
drawed th’ breath o’ resistence, ’n’ just wrapped up 
in his wife, but he’s no fool, — Dick Phelps ain’t, — ’n’ 
them two smart ones couldn’t pull the wool over his 
eyes forever, nor fool Marion Bayard, neither. I pre- 
sume likely there was danger o’ his guessin’ how 
matters was a-going, when My Lady packed her 
dear friend off to Albany for a visit, ’n’ sent Richard 
along to take care of her. I wouldn’t want to hev 
her conscience when she lays awake o’ nights, ’n’ 
minds how the trip ended ! ” 

“ I mind — ” Mrs. Greene contributed another 
block to the dirty mosaic — “ meetin’ them two ridin’ 
up street together, in high feather when the other two 
was fairly off, that day. So happy, ’n’ lovin', ’n’ full 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


189 


o’ talk, they hed no eyes nor ears for anybody else. 
Everybody was starin’ at ’em as the carriage went 
by. We hed a chromio ’t home o’ Antony ’n’ Cleo- 
paytra, an’ I tole mother that night ’t reminded me o’ 
them., ’s I see ’em that noon. The nex’ thing I 
heard, the judgment o’ heaven hed fell, ’n’ their 
riotin’ was turned into mournin’.” 

This was felt to be an effective figure, but Mrs. 
Fitchett was not to be distanced by a woman whose 
husband was but “ middling-well-off ” in the stove- 
business. 

“ If the bolt ascended from heaven, ’twasn’t aimed 
very good, seein’ ’s the innercent suffered, ’11’ the 
guilty went scotch-free. If th’ truth was tole, it 
might come out that Rex Lupton ain’t been grievin’ 
’n’ sulkin’ all these years, like a monk in a nunnery 
with a shaved head, because Marion Bayard was 
killed, so much ’s because Dick Phelps got well. 

‘ But, there ! I ain’t one to osculate ugly stories ! 
* Live ’n’ let live ! ’ sez I, ’n’ every man mind his 
own business, ’n’ the Almighty for us all ! In spite 
o’ all his money ’n’ his travels, ’n’ his good ole family, 
’n’ his fine house, Richard Phelps ’s ’s fine a fellow ’s 
was ever hitched to the wrong woman. There ain’t a 
person, high nor low, but speaks favorable of hhn. 
He’s been over here, three or four times ; jest walked 

'cross lots, sociable ’s could be, seein’ me ’bout the 

4 

groun’s, or on the porch. Nothin’-wouldn’t do but I 
must perambulate him over the house ’n’ conserva- 
tory, ’n' grapery, ’n’ show him all my contrivances. 
Laugh ! it jest dooz me good all through to hear that 
man laugh at a funny story, ’n’ nothin’ too small for 


190 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


him to be val' rested in. Both the children takes after 
the mother in their ways. The boy, he favors his 
father some, but the girl, she’s the livin’ image o’ th’ 
mother. Hez the same trick o’ carryin’ her head 
high, an’ steppin’ out quick ’n’ light. 

\ do hope, Mr. Lee, for your sake ’n’ the sake o’ 
the church ’n’ the Sassity, that your brother ain’t 
keepin’ company with her. That’s all the talk now.” 

“ It is not safe to believe all we are told, my dear 
madam,” the minister, being a clergyman, made haste 
to say. But, Miss Fidelia, are we to have no music 
this evening ? I hear that you have improved marvel- 
lously during your vacation.” 

While the young lady, reputed in her circle to be a 
musical prodigy, executed a piece,” Mrs. Lee, with- 
drawn into the most obscure corner she could get, 
gazed across the now moonlighted lawn to the peace- 
ful old house with the pillared front. She was fond 
of her brother-in-law, and he had made her longingly 
anxious to meet Mrs. Phelps. She had not ventured to 
call before her husband and herself had “ done ” the 
parish round of visitation, but in the cramped, lowered 
sphere to which she was bound, the thought of associ- 
ation on familiar terms with one so gracious and noble 
as Llollis had pictured his new friend to be was indes- 
cribably tempting. Now — she began to question if it 
would ever be safe to open intercourse between the 
parsonage and the Phelps place. Whether or not the 
revolting stories retailed with horrible gusto by the 
cabal of gossips had a substratum of fact, Mrs. Phelps 
was banned by the powers that were in “ Church and 
Society,” and might not visit or be visited by her 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


19 


without peril to Rufus’s “ usefulness” — phrase of 
dread import to the conscientious sharer of his life- 
burden. 

She was so colorless with physical and mental nausea 
when the early hour of separation arrived, that Mrs. 
Fitchett commented upon it with habitual delicacy: 

“ ’T seems t’ me, your vacation ain’t benefited you 
no great deal ! I was 'n hopes you’d come home 
chirked up ’n’ ready for th’ winter champaign. If 
th’ head’s weak, the hull heart ’s sick, the Good Book 
sez. ’N’ if a minister’s wife ain’t right-down capable, 
'n’ aint got a sight o’ faculty, it’s kind o’ uphillish 
work for th’ rest of us to be wearin' of our energies 
out in church ’n’ parish.” 

Oh, she’ll come ’roun’ all right when cool weather 
comes,” twittered Mrs. Emmons, pitying the object of 
the attack, as she saw the hot scarlet burn into the 
white cheeks. “ These unseasonable heats is tryin’.” 

“ You lean folks hadn’t ought to mind em ! ” re- 
torted the buxom relic of the richest man in the 
denomination or that section of it resident in Freehold. 
“ Look at 7ne ! I’d stan’ up to my dooty in the world 
if the thermometer was a thousand in the shade, 
Farragut! ” 

She called the Lees back when they were half-way 
to the gate. The rest walked on without them, 
another illustration of the independent ways of native 
Freeholders. 

The widow bustled into the dining-room, gathered 
all the withering flowers from the vases, bound them 
into a hard, huge clump with a hemp string, and 
thrust them into the hands of the pastor’s wife. 


192 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


“ You might 's well hev ’em ! ” benevolently. “ I 
don’t care to take the trouble o’ pickin’ of ’em over to- 
night ; I’m that beat out with the company, ’n’ every- 
thing ! An’ I’ve got agarding full of ’em besides. I 
presume likely they’ll come up quite handsome if you 
clip^ the stems when you git home ’n’ put ’em in fresh 
water, an’ set your parlor out real pretty for nigh ’pon 
a week to come. Good-night, agin ! ” 

“ I think there is a palpable mistake in the transla- 
tion of one passage of Holy Writ,” Mr- Lee began to 
say deliberately and conversationally, in his usual key, 
as they turned away. ‘Who endeavored patiently the 
contradiction of sinners ’ should, I am positive, be 
rendered ‘ the patronage of fools.’ That is the cru- 
cial test of discipleship, priesthood, and the apostolic 
calling ! ” 

His wife gave a dry, hysterical sob, and pinched his 
arm. 

“ She’ll hear you, dear ! ” she whispered. 

“ She wouldn’t comprehend if she did ! It has 
been a hard evening for you, my pet. I wish I could 
spare you such ordeals, but they are a part of the 
ministry of reconciliation, as man has improved upon 
the Almighty’s design. You are a brave, true wife to 
carry your end of the cross so patiently.” 

“ If I could but feel — but things are too much out 
of joint to be straightened by two pairs of hands. 
How sweet the air is ! I was blind and dizzy in that 
stuffy, steaming room rank with the smell of new car- 
pets and varnished furniture, and reekmg with scan- 
dal. Rufus, do you suppose there was one grain of 
truth in that pestiferous garbage about her ? ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


193 


She lowered her voice, for they were nearing the 
gate of Mrs. Fitchett’s next-door neighbor. 

“ My blessed little simpleton ! do I suppose that the 
moon — ‘ bright regent of the heavens ’ — is made of 
Roquefort cheese ? ” 

Two figures stepped from behind a pillar of the 
open gateway, out upon the sidewalk, and confronted 
them. 


CHAPTER X. 


T he past few weeks had been filled with excite- 
ment and rapturous surprises for Hollis Lee. A 
project, conceived by Mr. Phelps during the fortnight 
of Adirondack companionship, and remotely hinted at 
in one of their later interviews at that date, had assumed 
form and active life since the return of the exile to his 
home. He had taken an especial fancy to the hand- 
some young fellow from the first, and this was heigh- 
tened, not lessened, by Paul’s departure. 

It was thought best that the student, whose curricu- 
lum had been that of foreign schools and universities, 
should be prepared for the different methods of an 
American college by a few weeks of acclimatization 
under a Yale tutor. To this end, he had gone to New 
Haven in August, engaged an efficient “ coach,” and 
was, as he reported at home the two Saturday evenings 
he had permitted himself to enjoy with his family — 
“ working like the handle of a town-pump.” Richard’s 
scheme, originally broached half in jest, and commend- 
ing itself to him with thoughtful discussion, was a co- 
partnership with the brother of the Freehold clergy- 
man. In the law-business which would doubtless flow 
back to the old office occupied by his father, the late 
Judge Phelps, and then by Richard for nearly two 
years, he would find a bright junior invaluable. He 
did not mean to drudge into the seventies, as did many 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


195 


of his compeers, as his father had shortened his life by 
doing. It was somewhat problematical if his rein- 
stated health would bear the northern winters as yet. 
Yet a practice must be built up and kept for Paul. 
The father was amazed at the might with which local 
associations, almost dormant during the term of his 
expatriation, drew upon his heartstrings. He resumed 
possession of the renovated homestead and met his old 
neighbors with exuberant delight that brought back the 
glow and hopes of youth. His son, he vowed, should 
never be an absentee. He would make a nest so in- 
viting, a niche so honorable for his occupancy, that 
Paul would seek no other residence than the town his 
ancestors had founded, no more ambitious career than 
his father had opened up for him. 

It was with the step and flush of a boyish victor, 
that Richard walked up the avenue in company with 
Hollis Lee, on the afternoon of the Fitchett tea-party, 
and presented him to his wife, who met him, as usual, 
on the piazza, as “ the junior member of the law firm 
of Phelps and Lee." 

“ It is settled then ! " said the lady, kindly proffer- 
ing her hand for the nervous grasp of her husband’s 
favorite. “ Have I the honor of being the first to wish 
the copartnership all the success it deserves ? " 

“ She puts everybody at ease ! " Hollis thought for 
the hundredth time, feeling the warm clasp and meet- 
ing the motherly eyes. 

Every drop of his blood was tingling smartly with 
excitement; a perpetual electric battery was sending 
new, strange life through his veins. His business am- 
bitions, his social aspirations had never soared higher 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


than the pinnacle on which he felt himself to be stand- 
ing securely and at ease. So much had been gained 
in so short a time that hopes yet more fond and daring 
reached eagerly toward fulfilment. 

The preposterous had become the reasonable, the 
unexpected was the only probability. 

“ You are too good to me — all of you ! ” he fal- 
tered, the while he glanced around for the other and 
most important part of the “ all.” “ I hope — I shall 
try never to prove unworthy of your confidence. But 
it seems like a dream ! ” 

Paul, his first friend, was far away. That may have 
been one reason why he missed the sister more than 
he had supposed he would, should she not be with her 
mother to greet him. His cup was full and sweet. 
Her actual presence would but cast a sparkle down to 
the golden bottom of the chalice. There were no 
dregs, no unrefined lees. 

Richard took him up to his own dressing-room to 
wash his hands and brush his hair before dinner. They 
had lingered so late, talking over final arrangements 
at the office, there was no time for Hollis to go home 
to dress. 

“ One would think this was New York, at the height 
of the season ! ” the host had said when the other 
demurred at presenting himself before the ladies in 
his business suit. “ You look cool. That is the main 
consideration in this weather — and ” — laughing pleas- 
antly — “ you are always a stylish fellow, even in your 
fishing-gear.” 

The boy had never been upstairs in this house be- 
fore. To his sensitized imagination, the privilege 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


197 


was a long, quick stage toward closest intimacy. He 
was already made almost one with the household. 
The so-called dressing-room was a fair-sized chamber 
with a polished floor, oak inlaid with walnut. Mar- 
ble bath-tub, shower-bath, foot-bath and lavish store 
of towels, from Turkish crash up to damask — were at 
one end. A bamboo lounge, a dressing-bureau, a 
chiffonier, and half-a-dozen chairs were the bulk of the 
furniture, but the effect of the whole was such spaci- 
ousness and luxury to one used to the modest appoint- 
ments of parsonage-life, that he stood looking about 
him with half-awed and altogether pleasurable curi- 
osity when Mr. Phelps had left him with the injunc- 
tion to “ make himself at home, and to come down 
when he was ready.” It agreed with his sense of fit- 
ness that the girl he loved should be environed with 
comforts and beauties the need of which was un- 
known to him personally. One of her charms was 
a nameless and subtle congruity with all that 
went with her fair, affluent life. His spirits would 
have ebbed desolately had he been unhopeful of 
his prospective ability to continue all these things 
to her. 

A portrait hung against the wall, opposite a loung- 
ing-chair, on the back of which lay a silk smoking- 
jacket. An excellent likeness of Mrs. Phelps, in the 
creamy white gown her husband liked. The stead- 
fast nobility of her visage, the benign eyes that 
watched him as they might Paul, the sweet, pensive 
lines of the lips that had never moved ungently in his 
sight — wrought upon him to a singular result. Turn- 
ing the key noiselessly in the door, he approached the 


198 


A GALLANT FIGLIT. 


picture and bent knee and head, as at a Madonna’s 
shrine. 

“ If God gives your child to me ! ” said his heart, 
“ I swear to love and serve and worship her as you 
would have her beloved and cherished — to make her 
wifehood as happy, as glorious a thing as yours is ! ” 

He added aloud, “ So help me God ! ” in rising ; 
then, the New England part of him abashed at 
the dramatic impulse that had borne him so far be- 
yond his habitual self, he hurried through his ablu- 
tions, brushed his clothes, and arranged his cravat at 
a cheval-mirror in three hinged compartments, each 
reflecting the lithe figure that stood before the central 
glass. He took deliberate advantage of the novel 
opportunity offered him for seeing all ^des of a sub- 
ject as interesting as that now presented. He was 
remarkably free from personal vanity — as men go — 
but he extracted sincere gratification from the assur- 
ance that the clean-limbed, well-built and well-featured 
youth in trig summer costume, reflected with frank 
fidelity in the triple mirror, need not fear inspection 
from any angle of observation. He was in the humor 
to make the best of himself just now, from a variety 
of motives, the chiefest being his love for Salome 
Phelps. He could never be worthy of her, but, with 
heaven’s help, he might approximate, in time, what 
he supposed was her ideal. 

He ran lightly downstairs when he had heard Mr. 
Phelps precede him to the lower floor. Salome was 
talking with her father opposite the front-hall door, 
her form framed by the arching vines and massive 
pillars. Her gown was white and sheer, bound at the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


199 


waist with a silken scarf of dead gold. A level bar 
of sunshine — golden with purple shadows — fell upon 
the cincture, and, following its lines, seemed to wind 
lovingly about her. In the girdle was a single burn- 
ing bright Jacqueminot rose. The boy actually passed 
his hand over his eyes, as if partially blinded, in 
going forward to greet her. 

Her face was radiant at sight of him, her answering 
advance girlishly impulsive. 

^^Papa has been telling us the good news,” she 
said, shaking hands with him as heartily as her 
mother had done. It is the most agreeable arrange- 
ment all around that could be imagined, and will be 
simply perfect when the duet is made a trio by Paul’s 
admission to the firm. And it will always remain, 
‘ Phelps and Lee ! ’ Musically monosyllabic, with, 
as Mr. Edmund Sparkler would say, ‘ no nonsense 
about it.’ Clients cannot resist the combination. 
The nicest part of it all is that it makes you one of 
us, you know — abnost a member of the Phelps family.” 

Mrs. Phelps raised her handkerchief to brush away 
a smile at the naive and unexpected climax. Richard 
saw nothing equivocal in a declaration of what jumped 
with his own mood. He was ready to adopt the 
promising lad. That Salome should be sisterly was 
no more than he wished. Like the vast rank and file 
of fathers, he would never suspect that his daughter 
was marriageable until his eyes were rudely opened to 
the fact by a much younger and less attractive man. 
And then, the discovery that the inferior being was 
preferred by her to himself would be a heavier blow 
than the actual parting with the girl who had given 


200 


A GALLAiVT FIGHT. 


evidence of such wretched taste. If his fellow-towns- 
people had possessed one tithe of the knowledge of 
human nature they prided themselves upon, they 
would not have accused him, in after-days, of for- 
warding the union. A matchmaking father would be 
a clumsy anomaly. 

The lover’s head was light with rapture ; he trod 
upon air with winged heels. He was but three-and- 
twenty on his last birthday. 

They dined at half-past six, in a lofty room, cool 
with shade that had been carefully preserved there 
all day without banishment of fresh air. The courses 
were distinct and ordered with just regard to season 
and seq^uence, from the clear soup to the faintly- 
tinted ices redolent of the sunny side of just gathered 
peaches. Before there was need of artificial light, 
the little party returned to the piazza, where, as Mrs. 
Fitchett had reported, Mrs. Phelps made tea and 
Turkish coffee. 

Richard brought out cigars with this last. 

“We can’t have smoking in our office," he said, 
with his frank, merry laugh. “Old Freehold is too 
strong for Young America, there ! Smoking, drink- 
ing, gambling — are done up in one and the same bun- 
dle of death by my worthy fellow-citizens. I never 
defend the weed in their presence. I doubt if three 
men and ten women in town know that I am guilty of 
the practice. Why, only to-day I listened with man- 
fest, if tacit, approval to the story of the persecuted 
parson over the Connecticut line who refused to re- 
ceive a cent of salary that was acquired by raising 
and selling tobacco crops. He lost his church 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


201 


thereby. Let us hope he saved somebody’s soul by 
stubborn adherence to his principles. Now — daugh- 
ter, for our twilight music ! ” 

If Hollis Lee could have peeped through the wire 
window-screens into the Gehenna of the Fitchett ban- 
quet, just at its height while he sipped his coffee and 
puffed lazily at his Havana, Salome’s exquisite ren- 
dering of Schubert and Mendelssohn flooding 
moonlighted spaces, fragrant with concordant sweet- 
ness, he would have given a pitying sigh to the 
blameless martyr of the scene. Contrast could 
hardly have enhanced his happiness. While the sis- 
ter-in-law, to whom each influence of his ecstatic hour 
would have been like water from the remembered 
Well of Bethlehem, parched and shrivelle'd in slow 
torture, he drank in bliss with the arrogance of youth 
and inexperience, accepting it as his birthright. 

Ah ! how many tales of other love-draughts, quaffed 
as thirstily and fearlessly, would the dumb white col- 
umns and whispering vines of the ancient colonnades 
have revealed, had human senses been fine enough to 
interpret their language ! 

The third white gown, “ spotted ” by Mrs. Tom 
Johnston, belonged to Mrs. Lupton. Rex had a 
business engagement, and Gerald was deep in his les- 
sons, and the children were in bed, and she was ennuy^e 
to death ! Thus she made known her pitiable case. 

“ As if you need apologize for giving us pleas- 
ure ! ” said Mrs. Phelps, in playful chiding. “You 
want some coffee, I know. I had your especial cup 
and saucer brought out in prescience of your arrival. 
Only, I expected you earlier !” 


202 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


Mrs. Lupton’s figure was fuller than when we last 
saw her, but still fine ; her cheeks had rounded into 
more girlish outlines. Seen in the moonlight as she 
sat in a wicker-chair, to which most people objected 
because “ it threw them too far back,” with her white 
draperies flowing free and far, the shapely hands toy- 
ing with her cup while she hearkened to the music, 
no one could think of her as the widow of a man over 
fifty years of age, the mother of five children, and the 
step-parent of Rex Lupton. 

“A graceful study!” Richard murmured under 
his breath, as he set his cup down on the stand by his 
wife. 

She smiled, with an assenting gesture of apprecia- 
tion. Hollis followed suit with his emptied cup, 
and — 

“ Pretty as a picture — isn’t she ? ” 

The smile now was a low laugh, at which the 

Study ” turned slow, lamping eyes of inquiry upon 
her friend. 

“ Only suppressed applause, my dear I ” was the 
answer. “ I foresaw that it was inevitable when I put 
you just there. The applause, I mean — not the sup- 
pression.” 

“ She does play remarkably well to-night — even for 
her ! Her touch is inimitable ! ” remarked the trai- 
nante accents. 

They all laughed — still softly, not to lose the music, 
at the consummate pretence of misconstruction of 
their meaning, Richard clapping his hands noise- 
lessly. 

Hollis was used, by now, to the pretty nonsense- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


203 


play for which these people, rich and refined, had 
talent and leisure. It was very unlike the hard work, 
the economies, and the noisy although good children 
in his brother’s house, but it suited his taste. He 
seemed to have waited and longed all his life for this 
sort of association, and found the fulfilment more 
enchanting than his ignorant dreams. How Ethel — 
the pale, sweet-faced “ sister-in-heart,” as she called 
herself to him — would enjoy it all ! The thought re- 
curred again and again, in the midst of his happi- 
ness. 

He owed more, in some respects, to Ethel than to 
the mother whose home he had left, at fifteen, for the 
boarding-school where ministers’ sons were prepared 
for college at half-price, in consideration of sundry 
services in garden, school-rooms, and stables, which 
beneficiaries ” were expected to perform. Somehow 
ministers contrive to send their boys to college, if 
they half-starve and quite overtask themselves to do 
it. Rufus and Hollis Lee’s mother had brought up 
and helped educate four sons, and buried two daugh- 
ters while babies in graves for which she could not 
afford to get tombstones. She had “ faculty ” of the 
best Yankee stamp, and her manner of “ doing for 
her folks,” was commended by the most critical of 
the parishioners. The New Hampshire hill-parish 
was bleak and stony, the salary small and irregularly 
paid. Even “ faculty ” in feminine hands could not 
reshingle the, parsonage when the roof leaked, or 
drain a cellar that got into an unaccountable trick of 
dampness after mountain rains. Mrs. Lee’s busy feet 
left imprints on the oozy floor whenever she went 


204 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


down for wash-tubs, or potatoes, or milk, and she 
told Hollis, when he came home for his summer vaca- 
tion, that she had been obliged to move her bed to 
the other side of her chamber “ to get away from the 
drip.” The boy’s heart smote him to-night, in re- 
calling how little heed he paid to the teasing “ hack ” 
he could hear, at night, through the partition, and 
how cruelly careless was his merry raillery upon 
mother’s ” increasing thinness. 

“You won’t be able to throw a shadow by this 
time next year, if you go on in this w’ay ! ” he said, 
when he took leave to go back to school. 

The academy that offered such favorable terms to 
the sons of the prophets was one hundred and fifty 
miles from the hilkparsonage, and the snows that win- 
ter were unusually deep even for New Hampshire. 
When his father wrote to Hollis of his mother’s death 
on the last day of the year, he added that, in consid- 
eration of the expense, the distance, and the inclem- 
ency of the season, his “ dear son ” would better re- 
main “ in meek resignation ” where he was. His 
mother “ had met death as she had life, patiently and 
bravely, and was now in the enjoyment of eternal 
rest.” The husband was sincerely distressed by “ the 
dispensation,” and being a bookish man, with, as the 
parish put it, “ no head for every-day work,” he suf- 
fered such straits with the youngest son, the only 
child left at home, for the lack of the common decen- 
cies of domestic life, that the stirring sisters of the 
church and society married him, out of hand, to a 
smart “ widow- woman, with quite some money of her 
own.” At Hollis’s next vacation, he found her installed 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


205 


in the stead of the shadowy woman whose rule, how- 
ever strict he had been wont to think it, was ease and 
peace and love compared with that pf her shrill- 
tongued, strong-armed successor. One of the pro- 
visions of the informal but binding marriage contract 
was that she should not be ‘‘ bothered with more than 
one of the children at a time.” Hollis spent his vaca- 
tions thereafter with his brother Rufus, who was mar- 
ried and settled in a village on the left side of the 
Hudson. Since the removal of the clergyman’s fam- 
ily to Freehold Hollis had lived with them, giving 
such help as a brave heart and ready hands could 
offer to the only sister he had ever known. For over 
a year past he had paid board, having, aided by 
Rufus’s influence, gained a slight foothold in his pro- 
fession among the cautious Freeholders. 

AVhatever of social tact and ease of manner he 
had was due to Ethel’s training. The ladyhood 
transmitted through four generations of gentlefolk 
wears well and seldom needs repairing. Mrs. Phelps’s 
breeding was not finer in grain than that of the brow- 
beaten pastoress, who kept one “ girl,” and turned 
her last winter’s gowns without the aid and counsel 
of a dressmaker. If the dew sprang sometimes to 
the quick, bright eyes, when Hollis saw Paul kiss his 
mother, he was oftener reminded of Ethel by the ma- 
tron’s gentle graciousness of demeanor, her unvary- 
ing refinement of diction, her thought for others and 
forgetfulness of self. 

He mused of these things silently, while the moon- 
light dreamed on vines and lawn, and nestled among 
the moveless folds of Mrs. Lupton’s draperies, and 


2o6 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


the river-breeze lingered to hearthe“ twilight music." 
Some day, he resolved, he would say it all to Mrs. 
Phelps, and ask her to befriend the tender creature 
whose surroundings were so ungenial. The story of 
homely privations and sordid cares might not be 
suited for Salome’s ears, but her mother w^ould under- 
stand — as -she did everything ! 

When the musician ceased playing and joined her- 
self to the group without, it parted into two sections, 
separated by the hall-door. On one hand were Mrs. 
Phelps, her daughter and Hollis ; Richard had picked 
up his chair and carried it over to Mrs. Lupton’s 
side. 

Without stooping to flirtation, the charming widow 
appreciated the advantages of a semi-confidential 
chat with a handsome, agreeable man — an old friend, 
too, to whom she could appeal for advice in the quan- 
daries that beset one in her position. She never 
flaunted her loneliness as, a distress-signal to chivalric 
manhood, but she did not let them overlook it. Her 
affliction had left her gentler, more in charity with 
the world ; had rounded the angles of a character 
Richard used not altogether to approve, in former 
days. To-night she was very attractive in a sort of 
chastened cheerfulness, a rare phase as he knew her. 
After some minutes of congenial converse, he found 
himself intimating his satisfaction with the change. 

“ I am just learning to do you justice, I believe," 
he confessed with habitual ingenuousness. “ There 
was a time when I was not in full sympathy with my 
wife’s warmth of admiring regard. I used to think 
you cynical. Your jeux d'esprit were dashed with 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


207 


pessimism ; you praised with qualifications. Do you 
suspect, I wonder, how you have been ripened and 
mellowed and beautified by the years that have de- 
tracted from the personal charms of the rest of us ? 
I am such an old friend that I may tell you this.’* 

“ If I were pessimistic I should accuse you of ang- 
ling for a compliment — ” the effulgent eyes outdoing 
the modest moonbeams. I was always too just to 
impute petty motives to you. No ! don’t speak, if 
you are about to contradict me ! As you say, we have 
known one another long enough to be perfectly can- 
did. And you really mean that she ” — lifting a deli- 
cate finger slightly to indicate of whom she spoke, 
and letting her voice fall into a still more confiden- 
tial key — “ is attached to me ? That makes me far 
happier than anything else you have said ! ” 

She reclined on the sloping chair-back with a just 
audible sigh of satisfaction, and did not offer to speak 
again for a moment. She appeared to be absorbing 
and assimilating what he had given. 

Richard’s forehead burned. His fair interlocutor 
might be the soul of candor, but she was seldom rude. 
Yet what did her remark betoken unless that the sug- 
gestion of his wife’s liking for her weighed more with 
the fascinating neighbor than the assurance of his 
approval and admiration ?"'Some men enjoy listening 
to praises of their wives, if only as indirect tributes 
to their taste. There never lived or breathed the 
husband who relished such laudation when it put him- 
self in a secondary place. ^ Woman was made for man, 
not man for woman. In the swift thought of that 
pause, Mr. Phelps revoked the pretty things he had 


2o8 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


said aloud and mentally, within the half-hour, of his 
impulsive friend. 

“ Because” — she resumed, in the cream-like flow 
of syllables he had thought musical a while ago — “ it 
is your nature to like people, and to do them the jus- 
tice — or favor — of letting them know when you are 
friendly. You give a benevolent disposition partial 
play, at least. That is one — among the many — secrets 
of your popularity with all classes. She ” — the little 
gesture again defending the pronoun from suspicion 
of the vulgarity that often attends upon its use — 
“ keeps the sweet secret of her preference to herself, 
as her bonny daughter will ‘ Love’s young dream,’ 
when it visits her. I have never been sure that the 
mother was more fond of one person than another, 
when once the sacred family pale is passed. That is — 
with two exceptions. She does my stately step-son 
the honor of distinguished partiality for him above all 
other young men, and she poured out a vast river of 
affection upon the poor girl who loved him. Maybe, 
because she did love him. Or — ” yet more slowly — 
“ because he loved her. The affair was a triangle. 
Isosceles, if you like. Did you suspect that I knew 
that much geometry ? ” 

‘‘ I don’t know that I suspect it yet ! ” The curt 
laugh was not suave. “ Which two sides were equal 
to each other, and unlike the third ? ” 

“ That is a problem of your own asking. He who 
propounds should be able to answer. What a 
thoroughly nice youth that is over there ! Being in 
such different social cliques, or rather being myself 
in none at all, of late years, I never guessed, until 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 209 

recently, what an acquisition he is to the brief list of 
Freehold beaux.” 

“ He is a good fellow, and, as you say, a gentle- 
man,” — absently. 

She let him ponder — or sulk— longer than a duller 
woman would. He must begin talking again of 
something, presently, being her host, and she awaited 
her cue. The night was divine ; she liked \iQX chaise^ 
longue ; the view of black tree-clumps against glisten- 
ing roofs and spires, with the silver-white ribbon of 
the river defining the curves and indentations of the 
thither-side meadows, was more extensive than that 
afforded by her own portico. She liked beauty in 
nature^ and in art wherever found, and at whatever 
cost. 

Richard tugged hard, but not agitatedly, at his 
drooping blonde moustache for a prolonged, discon- 
tented minute. 

“ And — so you think,” he began — that I wear my 
heart upon my sleeve ? ” 

“ By no means ! Nor am I a daw. The question 
is not of your heart, but of your wife’s. I am not 
prone to effusiveness, but I say it in all sincerity of 
feeling that I would rather have her cordial esteem 
than the passionate devotion of any one else I know. 
Her love would be the highest compliment I could 
receive. Men don’t conceive such attachments for 
men as, now and then, one woman cherishes for 
another. I fell hopelessly in love the first time I met 
her, and am more enamoured to-day than I was yester- 
day. That is the reason why I detested the woman 
she did love — so well that she has never suspected 


210 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


my worship. I was as jealous of that beautiful, bril- 
liant girl as you were, and for a like cause.” 

I ! I was never jealous of her — or of anybody 
else ! ” 

No V In the moonlight that had, by now, crept 
up to her face, he saw the arched eyebrows, the smile 
of faint, fine derision. “ I have repeatedly declared 
you to be a unique among husbands. Do you recol- 
lect how I once betrayed you into the confession that 
you did not like — we won’t call names for fear of 
being overheard — but the woman who hated me, as I 
her ? We three, — the object of my dislike, the object 
of our common devotion, and I — made another isos- 
celes triangle. You, my sighing step-son, — her swain, 
— and she, another. There was not an equilateral 
in the lot. She and he — elle et luV — loved one 
another. You had an antipathy to both. Peculiar — 
wasn’t it ? ” 

“ Uncommonly ! ” Richard’s laugh was dryly husky, 
his fingers were twisted in his moustache. “ I begin 
to have faith in your mathematical abilities. Every 
interview astounds me by the exhibition of some 
novel accomplishment, hitherto undreamed of. In 
the words of the hymn, — 

Where will the growing numbers end ? ’ ” 

Don't be commonplace when I have pronounced 
you a unique ! Mr. Phelps ! ” with a sudden keen 
concentration of suspicion in face and altered tone — 
who was the man whom that girl expected to meet 
in Albany ?” 

“ Great heavens ! what do you mean ? ” 

“ If you were not in her confidence, no one was ! 


A GALLANT FIGH'^. 


2II 


She had a reason for accepting the man she intended 
to marry. Yes ! I think there is no doubt she meant 
to honor our family thus far. Dishonor’' is not a' 
word for ears polite or for those of a husband who 
made a love-match, and believes in the sanctity of 
such. So, we will not speculate as to what would 
have followed the interview with this nameless lover, 
had not Providence first given her you as a watch- 
dog, and then put the mistaken creature out of the 
reach of temptation.” 

Richard’s face was blank with amazement. 

“ Upon my soul, you are dealing in riddles — ” 

“I know it ! The only key to the mystery is that 
the gallant, gay Lothario was a Baltimorean. — What 
is it, Salome, dear ? ” ^ 

The girl had called her name in her clear, soft 
voice, un-American in quality and pitch. 

“ Mr. Lee is telling us of his sister-in-law, the 
cousin of our friend, Anna Marcy, whom you remem- 
ber. She is certainly a candle in the wrong socket.” 

“ A candle ! Miss Marcy ? ” her voice tremulous 
with stifled laughter. 

“ How awkward of me ! ” Richard understood, and 
Hollis Lee suspected, the covert allusion in Mrs. Lup- 
ton’s amused interjection, to Anna’s personal defect, 
but it was lost upon single-minded Salome. ‘‘ No ! 
Mrs. Rufus Lee ! Think of a lady by birth and breed- 
ing, condemned to familiar association with rich vul- 
garians — ” 

“ And the vulgar poor ? ” The creamy tones slid in 
another languid querj\ 

“ One could bear that better, for she could pity, if 


212 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


not elevate them. But, fancy being hectored, and 
tutored, and patroiiizedhy Mrs. Fitchett ! ” 

“ The dreadful mother of a more dreadful daugh- 
ter ! ” said Hollis, parenthetically. 

She should have sat down and counted the cost 
before she decided to marry an Orthodox minister, 
my dear girl. And having done even this, she should 
have resisted unto blood his intention to settle in 
Freehold." 

In that event, we should never have had the priv- 
ilege of knowing her — as we hope to do — and the 
opportunity of making her lot less hard — as we mean 
to begin doing forthwith ! " Salome pursued, un- 
daunted. “ You must know that she is, at this instant, 
undergoing the peine f^f te et dure of a parochial tea- 
party ! ” A tea-fight ! " Mr. Lee tells me it is called, 
and hopes she will come out with her life. Mrs. 
Fitchett’s dining-room is the battle-ground. The 
compassionate brother-in-law predicts that they will 
have all the gas-burners lighted, and all sorts of fried 
hot things to eat — " 

“ And all on the table at once — most of them in 
sauce-plates ! " interpolated Mrs. Lupton, with gloom 
born of experience. “ I know whereof I speak. I 
once counted the small, deep plates encircling the big 
shallow one from which I was expected to take the 
more substantial part — the motif — of the meal. There 
were eight ! I could think of nothing but my small 
brother’s first essay at chicken-rcysing, when he set 
ten eggs more than Dame Partlet could cover. He 
said he ‘wanted to see the old,, lady spread herself I ’ 
But go on, sweet Innocence ! " 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


213 


Hollis shouted with laughter. 

“ You couldn’t have hit upon a happier figure, Mrs. 
Lupton. And my little sister will be commanded to 
inspect and praise each- egg. The sequel of every 
such ‘ spread ’ is a headache that keeps her in bed 
all of the next day.” 

“ Papa, darling ! ” Salome went on, coaxingly, “ I 
want to go down to the gate when the festivities are 
over. Mr. Lee says ten o’clock, struck from the Old 
North Hill spire, is curfew to all right and pious Free- 
holders, so truce must be proclaimed at tea-fights 
about nine. Mr. Lee will go with me and introduce 
me to his brother and sister, and we will bring them 
up here for a quiet, social half-hour. I do long to 
have mamma lay her hand ih benediction (figuratively, 
of course) on that lovely little lady’s head, and make 
her feel that she is once more among her own kind ! ” 
pleaded the girl, thoughtless of the fetters she was 
welding upon a man’s heart, and the suspicions her 
earnestness was kindling in a woman’s mind. “ I 
promised Anna that we would be very neighborly 
with her cousin, and Mr. Lee says she does not feel 
that she has any claim upon us, so hesitates to make 
the first call.” 

“ The inquisitors will arraign her in the Star- 
Chamber, if she crosses your door-stone ! ” Mrs. 
Lupton averred, melodramatically. “ I am not sure 
as to the unity of the figure, or if Star-Chamber 
and Inquisition were contemporaneous, but I am 
positive of the fact that she will be hauled over the 
coals by every tabby and grimalkin in the. parish, 
until she’ll wish she had been born a four-footed 


214 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


church-mouse, with a handy hole in the vault to hide 
in. “ What took you to see the Phelpses ? " one will 
ask. Another — “ Hain’t you work enough in your 
own parish to do, but you must be kitin' reaound with 
them as hez never hed no c’nection with aour church — 
'n' sassiety ? ” Mr. Lee, there is a discord of con- 
sciousness in your laugh ! You know I am a true 
prophet. Take my advice, and don't change snarling 
to biting dogwS." 

This speech angered Richard unconscionably. It 
was inexplicable that so clever a woman of the world 
as Mrs. Lupton should make herself so nearly dis- 
agreeable as she had done several times this evening. 
Interference with the private affairs of her best 
friends could never be less than impertinence, as she 
would be quick to remark were another the offender. 
She might comprehend that, having set up his house- 
hold gods in Freehold, he had identified himself with 
the people of his native place ; that who touched 
them and the church of his fathers, assailed him. 

“ I will go with you, Hollis, to meet your 
friends," he said with grave dignity, rising. “ There 
goes nine o'clock now ! We will light another cigar 
apiece, and stroll on the lawn in sight of the gate 
until they leave Mrs. Fitchett’s door." 

Thank you ! " gratefully — from Salome, who 
hastened to bring a match from the stand and light 
her father's cigar, receiving a kiss in repayment. 

Hollis obeyed his senior's motion with so good 
a grace as to draw from Mrs. Lupton the remark, 
when he was out of earshot : 

“ There is game blood in that young barrister ! 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


215 


One might have supposed him entirely satisfied 
with the exchange of the daughter’s for the father’s 
society.” 

“ I agree with you in believing in his gentle breed- 
ing,” said Mrs. Phelps quietly, “ but I fancy, if the 
truth were known, he does not need the consolation 
of the cigar. Richard has taken him into partner- 
ship in his business, and their heads are full of it. 
It was settled only this afternoon.” 

Indeed ! ” There was no doubting her genuine 
interest in the news. That looks like your perma- 
nent residence ! I am delighted ! ” 

Mrs. Phelps’s acute ear detected the check put 
upon the cautious tongue at the last word. The sus- 
tained inflection betrayed that something was kept 
back. 

The owner of the tongue bit it in reflecting how 
near she had come to subjoining — “ What a lift for 
the Lees ! ” 

Something in the intent poise of Salome’s head, the 
motionless yet alert figure standing on the step where 
her father had left her, by the column that was gray 
against her snow-white gown, bespoke earnestness of 
attention in what the two matrons were saying. She 
was then ‘‘interested” in this “young barrister”! 
For a second, the cool-headed observer’s emotion was 
one of profound contempt for father, mother, and 
for the daughter who “ might do so much better ” — 
and of admiration for the open-faced youth, born in 
one country parsonage and resident in another, who 
had played for such high stakes and won. 

“ Everyone to his taste! ” was her second thought. 


2i6 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


“ If they have a fancy to bring up the heiress’ husband 
by hand, it is their affair — and the business of the 
Freehold gossips. So long as she does not take a 
romantic fancy to Rex, why should I care ? ” 

Quickly and noiselessly as the unuttered thought, 
Salome glided from the pillar to the chair her father 
had vacated, and took the lady’s hand in fingers 
which, the other felt, quivered nervously. 

‘‘ Dear Mrs. Lupton ! you could not have been in 
earnest when you said that association with us would 
hurt the Lees in their own parish ! Anna Marcy 
told us all about this dear little woman, — how lovely, 
and how lonely, and how^^?^^ she is! I could hardly 
credit her story of the bondage of church connection 
in this part of the world until Mr. Hollis Lee con- 
firmed it Surely here, in papa’s birthplace, where 
he is so much beloved, our friendship would be a 
help, as well as a solace. Mamma thinks so, too.” 

“ Mamma is nearer right than you or I, nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, my 
dear 1 ” gently chafing the fingers into stillness, and 
noting how pure and firm was the flesh, how smooth 
the skin, how perfect their taper to the tips, and that 
they were ringless. “ But I know my congeners and 
their ‘affinities’ better than she ever can. Free- 
holders are a people of manifold traits, and each trait 
is as pronounced as if it had the whole stamping- 
ground to itself. One of them is a jealousy of en- 
croachment upon their territory. Each ‘ church ’n’ 
sassiety’ preserves the pastor’s family as the English 
their game. They will not tolerate poaching. If you 
invite Mrs. Lee to your house, and make much of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


217 


her and enjoy her, — if you find her husband's company 
agreeable, and (while attending another church) ad- 
mit him as a welcome and frequent visitor, you are a 
poacher, claiming what belongs to other people by 
right of purchase and support. Mr. Hollis Lee will 
make his own place in society and the world — being 
unsalaried by the parish. That it will be a good one, 
goes without saying. He has all the requisites of 
success. It would be truer kindness in your family 
not to seek to be intimate with his relatives." 

“ But — " the eyes Mrs. Lupton thought were 
troubled or uneasy, following her mother’s motions as 
she directed the removal of the tea-table and equipage, 
then settling upon a rift in the vines through which 
the moon looked back at her — “ what if we were to 
take a pew in their church ? Papa said something to 
that effect the other day." 

“ I am afraid that would not help the matter. 
Mrs. Fitchett and her colleagues would raise the cry 
of favoritism." 

She spoke kindly and soberly, watching the girl 
narrowly. The question under debate went very 
deep with the child, evidently. The fingers quivered 
again, then were held still, by a direct and palpable 
exercise of will. Her lips were parted for further 
protest, when hasty steps crunched the gravel in the 
opposite direction to that in which the prospective 
partners had strolled. A long shadow shot athwart 
the moonlit floor. Salome arose, tranquil and smiling, 
as her mother said ^‘Good-evening ! " to Rex Lupton. 

His manner was unusually animated and joyous. 

“ You received my note, Isabel — did you not?" he 


2i8 


A GALLANT FLGHT 


turned to her to say, the salutations to the others 
being oven I dined — or supped — down-town,^ and 
did not get away from the office until ten minutes of 
nine. Mrs. Phelps ! may this young lady walk with 
me in the rose-garden for a little while ? It is such a 
glorious night, and I have been caged for twelve 
hours ! ” 

“ If the ‘ little ’ is not made long,” answered the 
mother. “ Explain to him, as you walk, my daughter, 
why you must be back in time to receive our guests — 
should they come.” 

I am duly grateful for the ‘ if.’ ” Rex had 
brought a white shawl and lace scarf from the hall, 
and was hurrying them on Salome. Now, we’ll set 
sail for Araby the blest! Cannot you signal us, Mrs. 
Phelps, when the expected vessels heave in sight ? 
We will keep a look-out at the mast-head.” 

Did the step-mother’s ears deceive her ? Who was 
the lively rattle, the audacious gallant, who bore off 
his prize amid badinage of nautical slang ? Had she 
not known him so well she would have believed he 
had taken too much wine with his club-dinner. 

“ Ah! the blessed elasticity of youth ! ” she sighed 
enviously, leaning forward to watch the retreating 
forms. Were I in that dear boy’s place, I should 
long for nothing on earth or in heaven but my pillow 
and ten hours’ sleep, while the mere fact that a hard 
day’s work is done reacts upon him like good news 
from a far country. Croakers tell me he is over- 
wrought by care and toil. Sometimes I am conscience- 
stricken at the thought that I and the children entail 
the burden upon him. I need not be seriously uneasy 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


219 


when he brings such spirits from the severest week’s 
labor he has had for a year. This is the winding-up 
of the dull season at the Works, the time when they 
‘ take account of stock,' and find out what has been 
made or lost in the past twelvemonth.” 

“ The result would seem to be pleasant, judging 
from Rex’s mood.” 

“ My dear ! when you have lived as long in the 
house with that — Runic being, you will not predicate 
anything upon the testimony of his moods and tenses. 
He is Bonnivard — self-chained to the pillar of Duty, 
wearing a “ pathlet ” (that’s what the brave Swiss 
called it), a * vion7tet,' in the stone floor. Rex seems 
altogether content with his ‘ vionnet' He has worn 
it so deep that he can just see over the edge by 
standing on tiptoe. He is on tiptoe to-night. The 
‘tramp ! tramp! ’ and the rattle of the chain will re- 
commence to-morrow. Heigho ! ” another and deeper 
sigh, — “ we cannot all be born strong as was his 
father, with ‘ heart ’ — and hand — ‘ for any fate ! ' 
And, if the iron be blunt, a man must lay to it more 
strength ! ” 


CHAPTER XI. 


R ichard PHELPS met his new guests in his 
best manner. It was courtly — magnetic — affa- 
ble — all that a warm-hearted gentleman who loved 
his neighbor as himself, an Abou Ben Adhem in nine- 
teenth-century coat and trowsers and patent leather 
“ Newport ties,'' should exhibit to those he wished to. 
honor. 

Mr. Lee succumbed to the spell at once, as his 
brother had foreseen. The two were talking together 
like old acquaintances by the time they reached the 
top of the hill. Denial of the request that they should 
come up to the hoifse was impossible. The surprised 
couple were taken possession of incontinently, claimed 
as lawful prizes “ won by a strategic flank movement,” 
according to Mr. Phelps, and were in the gravelled 
path before they recovered their wits. Hollis gave 
Ethel his arm, enraptured at the success of the ma- 
noeuvre. 

“ We have been lurking in ariibush this half-hour, 
waiting for you ! ” he whispered, squeezing her hand 
against his bounding heart. “ What kept you so long ? 
Johnston, Emmons & Co.” — such being the title of 
the wealthy firm of tanners and curriers — “ passed 
the gate ten minutes ago." 

In reality, it was not five, except by a lover’s reck- 
oning, but his sister-in-heart knew no better. It had 


220 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


22X 


seemed twice ten minutes to her. She told things to 
Hollis she kept from her husband, and her worn 
nerves revenged themselves now for the trials of the 
evening in an irritable outbreak totally unlike her 
usual gentleness : 

“ That odious woman, who was more insufferable 
than ever all the evening, called us back when we had 
gone as far as the gate — as she might shout to a 
hostler and laundress — to force this withered rubbish 
upon us ! ” showing the tightly-bound sheaf of mixed 
flowers, bigger than a Drummond cabbage, and as 
gaudy as cheap furniture chintz. “ She didn’t care 
to be troubled to keep them alive, she said, as her 
‘ garding ’ was full of fresh flowers, but I must clip 
the stems and put them in water, and decorate my 
parlors with them for the next week ! ” giggling tear- 
fully, and so ashamed of the weakness that the tears 
threatened to get the better of laughter. 

In a twinkling, the boy caught the unwieldy clump 
of blossoms from her disdainful hold, and sent them 
hurtling through the branches of the nearest tree. 

The only comment her insolence deserves ! ” he 
said, hotly. “ Now, Ethel, dear, forget purgatory and 
prepare for paradise. This is their plot — not mine. 
They said there seemed to be no other way of invei- 
gling you within their doors.” 

The hasty “ aside ” was all the preparation he could 
give her, for her husband and the master of the do- 
main had halted to wait for them. Richard took her 
from the younger man with graceful authority, and 
escorted her up the three broad stone steps, at the 
head of which Mrs. Phelps was awaiting them. 


222 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“This is very good in you ! ” she said, in her full, 
earnest tones, that always carried to the unprejudiced 
listener conviction of sincerity. “ Thank you, Hollis, 
for bringing them to us ! ” Transferring Mrs. Lee’s 
hand into her left, she held her right out to the 
lady’s husband. 

“ I hope you will pardon our bold stratagem, Mr. 
Lee. It was a good deal like a footpad’s attack, but 
it seemed impossible to secure our ends by conven- 
tional means.” 

“ I congratulate myself upon having a share in the 
result of the coup^" said a mellow voice, and another 
hand-clasp awaited the strangers. “ I am Mrs. Lup- 
ton” — forestalling Richard’s motion of introduction. 
“Whoever takes the Phelps household as neighbors 
must accept me also.” 

The third white gown had vanished, as entirely as 
though the moonlight had absorbed it. Probably the 
wearer had gone into the house for a few minntes. 
Hollis was used to see her fly upstairs for her moth- 
er’s fan, handkerchief or book ; to be her hands, 
feet and voice in errands to kitchen, dining-room and 
pantry. He appreciated, while waiting, the warmth 
of the welcome given to his relatives, the freemasonry 
of fine breeding that made the two parties mutually 
aware of the homogeneity of the united group ; 
saw Ethel take her rightful place with these thor- 
oughly-refined women ; noted with satisfaction that 
the “hail-fellow-well-met” tone and carriage his 
brother’s flock mistook for “ genteel ” ease was mod- 
erated into courtesy almost equal to Richard’s own. 
Rufus Lee had catered to parish taste too long and 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


223 


sedulously to be quite as truly the gentleman as his 
younger brother. Perhaps the original texture was 
inferior in quality and sensitiveness. His wife had 
kept him from serious degeneration. If the change 
from the heat, glare and hubbub of the Fitchett “tea- 
fight ” to the cool, subdued light in which these well- 
attuned spirits talked together in modulated tones, 
graciously deferential, each to the other’s opinions 
and tastes — were a degree less grateful to him than 
to the weary woman, brightening under remembered 
influences, as sun-beaten flowers in dewy twilight, he 
yet liked being made much of in the “ best circle ” 
of Freehold. Few of his parishioners were in so 
much as the outer ring of it. The ease and rapidity 
with which he had reached the centre affected him 
somewhat as a whiff of chloroform might. It was 
lulling, exhilarating, idealizing. He studied his pe- 
riods rather too carefully, and did not perceive that 
Richard never said “ sir ” to him, while his own use of 
it was frequent, but he surprised himself by feeling so 
soon “quite at home.” 

He might not be aware, but Ethel would have 
known, that his temper of mind was hardly manly, 
and accorded indifferently with the calm, self-respect- 
ful dignity of a clergyman who regarded all classes 
and conditions of men as so many souls in varying 
stages of development. He knew that he liked 
“nice” people, and nice people’s hqpses and ways. 
Mrs. Phelps’s graceful appeal to him, from time to 
time, on topics she assumed were better understood 
by him than by the others present ; her husband’s 
recognition of him as a man whom it was worth his 


224 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


while to cultivate ; the marked interest evinced by 
Mrs. Lupton in every word he uttered, might be only 
a different way of being hospitably agreeable from 
Mrs. Fitchett’s boisterous patronage, but the one 
soothed, where the other irritated. He collared his 
inner man occasionally, and shook him hard, in assur- 
ing him that these were the ways of the world, and 
these people worldlings. ^ He recollected, punctil- 
iously, that they were not of his fold, and never would 
be ; that their attentions to him merely indicated a 
desire to be on civil terms with the family of Mr. 
Phelps's business partner. He reiterated, warningly, 
the broad-faced widow's mimicry of the Baltimore 
woman’s ” invariable affability, and became more 
fascinated with each flying minute. 

Where was Salome all this time ? Richard was too 
busy talking well and drawing others on to respond, 
to observe her absence. Mrs. Phelps could not leave 
her especial guest whom she had installed in a luxuri- 
ous chair beside her own. Hollis grew silent and 
fidgetty, yet durst not venture a query. The hostess, 
who had the enviable gift of seeing all that went on 
about her, because she never lapsed into self-engross- 
ment, telegraphed an adroit petition to her valuable 
neighbor. 

“ Won't you look up those heedless children ? ” said 
the arch of the right eyebrow and the slight depres- 
sion of the left corner of her mouth revealed by the 
crystalline moonbeams. 

“ Compose yourself, my dear ! I will bring them 
in ! ” answered the slow lift of both the dark brows 
above the finest eyes in town. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


225 


Mrs. Lupton’s soft muslin with black ribbons, of 
course ! *’) made no sound, her footfall little, as she 
passed, like consolidated moonlight, into the central 
hall, dimly lighted in warm weather, floated out upon 
the back porch, down the steps, and out into the 
garden alleys. At the far end of one, in the fullest 
flood of radiance, she at once espied those whom she 
sought. They were standing near together, their 
heads bent over something — a flower or shrub — talk- 
ing in a low, but not especially confidential key. She 
approached without caution or misgiving. With the 
pre-conception of Hollis Lee’s successful suit in her 
mind, she had not given an afterthought to Rex’s 
invitation to the promenade and his evident famil- 
iarity with the ways of the household. He was comipg 
out of his bereavement after a phenomenally long 
period of immersion. His high spirits were but the 
shake a half-drowned creature gives himself to shed 
the superincumbent wet. 

Had she been never so suspicious Salome’s gay 
simplicity would have disabused her of doubt. 

“ Come, Mrs. Lupton,” she cried, before Rex per- 
ceived his step-mother, “ and settle the dispute. Here 
is a morning-glory, the finest of its kind and season, 
wide open. Mr. Lupton will have it that it has out- 
lived the heat of the day — he7'e I where there is not 
so much as a sporadic glimpse of shade — and is now 
enjoying the reward of bravery and an exceptional 
constitution. / maintain that it has thought, as did 
Jessica, that this moon ‘ is but the daylight sick,' and 
opened its one big eye in the full persuasion that it is 


226 A GALLANT FIGHT, 

time for a morning-glory who would keep abreast of 
the times to be up, if not doing.” 

You remember the attempt made to scare a toper 
out of his evil courses by carrying him, while dead 
drunk, into a vault and leaving him there?” asked 
Mrs. Lupton, falling in readily with her lively rattle. 
“ Your father used to tell the story, Rex. One little 
candle showed the fellow when he awoke where he 
was. He sat up in the open coffin, rubbed his eyes 
and stared around. ‘ Be blest if I ken rightly say 
whether I’m first riz, or mightily belated ! ’ he said. 
That is the quandary of the convolvulus, I suppose. 
There is but one way to settle it. If ‘ belated,’ the 
flower will bloom itself to death by morning. If 
*■ fil>st riz,’ it will have several hours more to live.” 

“ But,” Rex interposed, looking from one to the 
other, still with the dancing light in his eyes that was 
unfamiliar to his step-parent, “ How can I identify 
this among twenty others ? If it should prove to be, 
as Miss Phelps contends it is, a ‘ moon-g\oxy^' she is 
quite capable of palming off another opened blossom 
— a ‘ belated ’ twin-sister — upon me as the original. 
Then we shall never know on whose side the phenom- 
enon has declared itself.” 

“ In betting-phrase, you want somebody to hold the 
stakes. Pull the flower, take it home, and set it on 
your balcony in a glass of water all night. When day- 
light comes, the ‘ glory ’ will speak for itself. A more 
imminent question is what excuse a pair of truants 
will have ready for not keeping their promise of 
coming in to meet Mr. Hollis Lee’s friends. He had 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


227 


but one button left on his coat when I came away to 
look you up, and was twitching at that, yet could not 
summon courage enough to ask for you, Salome.” 

With a dismayed exclamation, the girl was speeding 
back to the house when Rex, distancing Mrs. Lupton’s 
more leisurely pace, overtook her. 

“ If you will excuse me I will not come in again. I 
have had a busy day, and there is a certain prospect 
of a busier to-morrow. I have the flower, you see, 
and hereby engage to deal honorably by it and you. 
I shall report on the resurrection — or demise — in the 
morning. Good-night.” 

His eyes, still lightful but no longer laughing, held 
hers, uplifted in ingenuous innocence, for a second ; 
his fingers closed firmly upon her hand ; he raised his 
hat to both the ladies and was gone, with long, springy 
strides across flower-beds and gravelled walks, down 
the grassy slope homeward. No inquiries were made 
concerning him when Mrs. Lupton and Salome 
emerged from the house upon the piazza. Only Mrs. 
Phelps knew in what company her daughter had 
lingered, and her discretion was a proverb. 

Had Hollis Lee dreamed of the stroll in the alleys 
of the rose-garden, and the girl’s forgetfulness of her 
promise to watch for his return, he would have borne 
a less buoyant heart back to the parsonage with him ; 
might have gone straight to his own room when they 
arrived, instead of following his sister-in-heart to the 
nursery, whither she went to see that all was well with 
the three children. 

Of them we may remark, in passing, that the bien- 
nial appearance of olive sprouts about the minister’s 


228 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


table was an offence to the economic sense of the 
people,” an average of one to each household being 
the decorous custom of the township. 

Mrs. Lee was reversing the pillow of the year-old 
baby when she became aware that Hollis stood beside 
her. She glanced up, with an expectant smile on a 
face that was less tired than it had been an hour 
before. 

“ Well, my dear boy ? ” 

What do you think of her ? ” he blurted out, 
anxiously. 

I like your friends exceedingly. They are, in ap- 
pearance and manner, all that you led me to expect, 
and more. If by ‘ her’ you mean Miss Phelps, I think 
her very charming, unaffected, intelligent, winning, 
and better than pretty. She has a fine, sweet, bright 
face, if I could judge fairly by the moonlight, and re- 
sembles her mother in voice and carriage.” 

They were not prone to affectionate demonstration 
in the hard-worked New England family, but she put 
both arms about his neck and kissed him. 

‘‘ God bless and prosper you in all things, dear ! 
.Whoever gets you should be happy.” 

The young fellow’s handsome face flushed up to his 
brown curls. “ I am sure of nothing myself, of 
course, as yet of her sentiments. I mean — I hope that 
some day I may feel that I have the right to tell her 
how it has been with me from the second day of our 
acquaintanceship. We had an afternoon service at 
Bartlett’s that Sunday, and the two old duffers of 
D.D.’s, who conducted it, rattled off prayers and read- 
ings at such a rate that I lost my place irretrievably 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


229 


within three minutes after we left the starting-post. 
So I pushed my chair back into a corner and watched 
her face, sweet and solemn, as she went through with 
it all. She wore a gray gown, with a big bunch of 
trailing arbutus tucked in the belt. I couldn’t talk 
of her to anybody but you. Rufus wouldn’t under- 
stand. Men never do until everything is definite and 
ready for announcement. I wanted you to know all 
about it, and to help me grow more fit to confess it to 
her when the time comes. So far as I can see, I have 
a clear field, but if there were a thousand competitors 
I would not yield it until I had my orders to retreat 
from her own lips.” 

Richard Phelps escorted Mrs. Lupton across the 
lawn, through the hedge, and along the winding-path, 
lately cleared out and re-laid to her door. Like all 
amiable — because fortunate — men and women, he had 
a spice of vindictiveness in his composition. Life had 
run on oiled wheels with him from his cradle-days ; 
the generous evenness of his temper was so rarely dis- 
turbed by crosses or temptations, that he bore the one 
and resisted the other, under the disadvantages of him 
whom the enemy finds nodding at his post. This odd 
little woman had pricked his self-love until it bled. 
Furthermore, if she surmised that he was chagrined, 
she was, or feigned to be, totally unconcerned in the 
matter. The hot weather made her languid, she com- 
plained, and said little else during the short walk, 
even closing her teeth palpably upon a couple of 
yawns. He was not used to have people yawn while 
he was talking to them. 

“It is too late to ask you in,” she said, facing him 


230 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


on her porch and letting fall the fleecy skirts she had 
held up with both hands from contact with grass and 
gravel. “ Even were it proper, which it is not, and if 
you cared to come in, which you don't'" 

She looked so bewitching in the full flow of moon- 
rays pouring between the two great elms flanking the 
gate : the gleam of dazzling teeth, the flash of speak- 
ing eyes were so arch and tempting that he was pro- 
voked to gallant resistance of the sentence. 

I think I will not go until you have taken back 
some of the cruel things you said to me awhile ago,” 
taking his stand against the door-post. “ As I told 
you then, 370U have been enigmatical — almost un- 
friendly. How have I offended you ? What have I 
done, and what left undone ? ” 

My dear Mr. Phelps ! do recollect that I live 
nearer the street than you ! What will Mrs. Grundy 
say if she chance to be peeping through the blinds of 
the house over the way, or rambling over the hill, and 
sees us standing less than a yard apart at 1 1 o’clock at 
night. You distract me ! ” 

‘‘ Turn about is fair play. I have been distracted 
for one hour and a half. Retract, and I go ! Refuse, 
and I defy Mrs. Grundy and all her emissaries ! ” 

I could not have said *• cruel things,’ ” — as piteous- 
ly as a two-year-old — “ because I never thought them ! 
Please specify, and briefly. Oh ! I am sure I hear 
the creak of the Grundyan shoes down the street ! ” 
He could not be specific, when thus adjured. Her 
expression and emphasis had had more to do with his 
disquiet than her language. It was hardly cause for 
complaint that she had preferred his wife to himself — 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


231 


for instance. And the silly gossip about Marion Bay- 
ard’s Baltimore admirer was a thing he could not 
refer to without arousing suspicions on a subject that 
it were best not to disinter. This woman was trying 
to play with him as a cat with a mouse, with her al- 
ternate antagonistic and attractive influences. He 
chafed at her trifling, and was tempted to gallant re- 
tort by her home-thrusts. If she wanted to flirt, he 
was at her service to a certain extent ; if war was her 
object, he would disarm her by courtesy. It would 
fare hard with him, if he, the veteran pet of her sex, 
could not parry the fence of a woman who had known 
no wider field of conquest than Freehold since she 
was twenty years old. 

“ Recapitulation would consume your valuable 
time, and be too painful to me,” he pleaded. “ Your 
conscience must recall that which pierced me to the 
heart.” 

“ Commonplace — for the second time this evening! 
But I am glad I found a joint in the harness,” she 
retorted, imperturbably, leaning easily against her side 
of the doorway, her eyes cool and dangerous as Da- 
mascus steel. “ I thought, before I knew you so 
well, that there was none. You cannot expect the 
archer who has emptied his quiver to go around and 
pick up all the ‘ shafts at random sent.’ Let me see ! 
what did I chatter about while we were making talk 
in our moonlit square of the piazza ? I praised your 
wife, but that was balm, not gall to your knightly 
soul. I decried Marion Bayard and insinuated un- 
generous doubts as to her constancy to her plighted 
wooer. That I do retract ! It is base to attack the 


232 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


dead unless one has proof positive of his charge. 
Was it the isosceles triangle puzzle that you re- 
sented ? Mathematics is an exact science, you know, 
and I write ‘ Q. E. D.’ under most of my work. 
Have you anything else to ask ? ” 

“ Nothing ! Except — ” moving a half-step nearer, 
and dropping his bantering tone — “ except to inquire 
if there is any reason why we should not be as good 
friends as ever, Mrs. Lupton. I do not pretend to 
comprehend your moods and veiled allusions. I am 
a blunt, straightforward man to those I really 
esteem, and I had hoped that, as your husband’s 
old and trusted intimate, I had some claim upon your 
regard.” 

“You need not go so far as that to establish a 
claim, Mr. Phelps ! ” She, too, left off banter, looked 
gravely and directly at him. “ That you are the lov- 
ing and beloved husband of the woman I revere be- 
yond all others would win for you consideration from 
me. If I were disposed to strike you ‘ to the heart,' 
as you have said jestingly (in questionable taste, 
allow me to say), she would be your shield. I think 
we have come to a full understanding. Now, if you 
will not go, I must. Good-night ! and do not let 
your dreams get tangled up with my geometrical 
figures ! ” 

He stood staring at the door she shut between 
them, for, perhaps, twenty seconds after she had 
flashed this adieu at him through the closing crack — 
a lightning gleam of dazzling teeth and eyes mock- 
ing, malicious — was it also menacing ? Then he took 
his way slowly back, up the hillside to where the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 233 

white pillars of his ancestral pile lifted broad fore- 
heads to the high moon. 

His wife had not moved from her place on the 
portico. Salome had gone to her room. 

. “ The night is so beautiful, that I could not bring 
myself to leave it,” Mrs. Phelps said, as her husband 
trode somewhat heavily up the steps. The shadows 
on the turf and floor are almost as sharp and clear as 
the silhouettes my grandmother used to cut out of 
black paper, and hold in the lamplight against the 
wall.” 

Her tone was tranquilly careless, the expression of 
figure and visage so placid and restful that the 
strangely-perturbed man stooped to kiss her in a 
passion of tenderness. 

‘‘ Thank Heaven that I married you, my good 
angel, and not Isabel Lupton ! ” 

She laughed — the sweet, girlish merriment he loved 
to hear. 

“ Mr. Lupton was grateful for the same mercy as 
long as he lived. What fresh occasion for thanksgiv- 
ing has poor Isabel given ? I thought her behavior 
to the Lees the perfection of breeding.” 

“Oh, nothing specific!” recalling his failure to 
adduce items. “ But she was less accordant — more 
fantastic in humor and talk than usual, to-night. 
Conversation with her was a sensible strain upon pa- 
tience and temper — at least to me. She is often en- 
tertaining — never reposeful. That is the unfailing 
charm of your society. You sustain without exciting, 
stimulate without taxing one’s energies. One is so 
sure of you always and everywhere.” 


234 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


You are very kind to think and to say it,” she 
answered gently. “ I do desire to be a comfort to you 
and the ‘children.” 

“ You are everything to me ! If there is anything 
good in me, it is yours, by creation and preservation. 
The evil that remains is there in spite of the cathol- 
icon of truest womanhood and wifehood. Heavens ! 
when i think what that word ‘ wifehood ’ implies in 
this connection — what you have done, and dared and 
suffered for me in the past six years, I feel that I am 
only fit to be one of your hired servants ! ” 

He pushed back his hat and she saw that the moon- 
beams glistened upon great beads on his forehead ; he 
champed his moustache fircely. 

The wife turned with a sudden impulse and cast 
herself upon his breast, clung to him convulsively, 
shielded her eyes with her hand as she spoke. One 
might have believed that she dreaded lest he should 
read accusation there. 

“ Richard ! ” the rich voice strained and muffled. 

If you have anything to tell that you think would 
shock or hurt me, say it now. There will never be a 
better time. I have imagined — I have been sure, 
sometimes, that there lay between us the shadow of 
an unexplained mystery — perhaps, of an unconfessed 
wrong or what you might consider as a wrong. There 
have been moments when you seemed to me to strug- 
gle between the sense of what you owed to yourself 
and to me. Dear ! th'ere can be no conflict ! We 
are one, and neither can have a sorrow or a strife 
apart from the other. I know how strong temptation 
is, and how weak the best of us are, when the guard 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


235 


is down for never so short a minute ! You told me 
once — and with truth — that I would be an intol- 
erant judge of certain forms of human weakness. 
That was long, long ago, when I did not know life 
as well as I do now. I hope I have grown more ten- 
der, more charitable, through my bwn mistakes and 
suffering. However that may be I am stronger than 
you think — and I have tried to be a good wife. Not 
always successfully, God knows, but I mean to 
keep on trying until death parts us — my husband! ” 
She uttered it rapidly, with passion that was co- 
herent, but so powerful that the astonished listener 
doubted the evidence of ^ his ears. The remark that 
had called forth the unprecedented outburst was, for 
all thought and intention of his, of the most general 
application imaginable. He had recollected, on a 
night fraught with romantic and sentimental influ- 
ences, what the noble wife sitting on the moonlighted 
porch of his dwelling had been to him, — her fidelity, 
her patience ; her skill in nursing ; her vivacious 
chat in his weary hours ; her forbearance with his 
humors and charity for his foibles — and said truly 
that he was not worthy of it all. As what man could 
be ? Introspection was not his forte. Still less was 
contrition a common frame of mind with one whom 
his acquaintances conspired to spoil. Plausible with 
the world, he condoned his own peccadilloes more 
freely than any others. If his mind had been mi- 
croscopically examined it would have appeared that 
he had never done anything that he believed was 
wrong, since he attained man’s estate and responsi- 
bilities. He reasoned a question from all sides, con- 


236 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


scientiously, before action upon it. He would have 
told you with the clear, straightforward look that won 
everybody’s confidence, how honestly he strove to 
obey his convictions, and he would have uttered it in 
all sincerity. His deflections from right — if such 
existed — began farther back than he looked. The 
stream ran well, the banks were sound and the bottom 
clear. In such circumstances the sanitarian is ex- 
ceptionally wise or fastidious who follows it all the 
way to the hidden spring far up the mountain-side, 
and there tests the quality of the water bursting from 
the soil or rock. 

It is not enough to say that a man has the courage 
of his convictions, to make his cause good and 
just. A prior step should be to analyze the principles 
themselves. I dwell on this distinction because it 
simplifies much that perplexes casuists, and drives 
youthful students of human nature into pessimism. 
Not one man in a million deliberately does what he 
believes, at the moment of doing, to be sinful. We 
vindicate the ways of man to man (when we are the 
actors), more jealously than the ways of the Maker of 
us all, and the Judge of those who put good for evil 
and evil for good, light for darkness and darkness for 
light, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 

There was no affectation in Richard Phelps’s stupe- 
faction at listening to his wife’s impassioned, and, as 
he considered, uncalled-for appeal to his conscience 
and candor, nor in the indignation which succeeded 
reflection. He admired and respected and loved her 
beyond all the rest of womankind, but even she, it 
would appear, was not superior to hysterical extrava- 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


237 


ganzas. To say that men hate scenes is to descend 
to axiomatic platitude. To say that this particular 
mar. was especially averse to scenes is a tribute to his 
taste, and also expressive of his horror of being made 
individually uncomfortable. One secret of his wife's 
influence over him was her self-control ; another, the 
skill with which she avoided disagreeable subjects, 
made his daily walks straight and smooth, and padded 
sharp corners. He had come to expect these offlces 
from her — as he affirmed, to feel '•'‘sure of her,” in 
all that pertained to his welfare. 

The quivering pleader clinging to him was like a 
stranger, whose touch hardened. He would not be 
unkind. He could not be sympathetic. 

“ Madeline ! ” he said, judicially. 

At the first accent she was brought to herself. A 
shudder ran over her that suspended breath for an 
instant ; she raised herself and sat back in her chair, 
still shielding her eyes with her hand, and waited to 
hear more, with head bowed upon her breast. 

“ My dear child, are you raving ? ‘ Mystery ’ and 

‘ wrong ’ are strange words to be used by a wife to a 
husband. If you will formulate your indictment, I 
may be able to defend myself.’ ” 

No reply from the drooping figure in the high- 
backed chair. Only the bowed head and hidden eyes, 
and a certain strain of attentiveness and waiting 
through all that augmented his displeasure. It said 
that definiteness of denial or disclosure was needed 
to satisfy her. 

“ After your frenzied inuendoes, it sounds tame for 
me to declare that my conscience does not cry put 


238 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


upon me as the vilest of reprobates. To the best of 
my knowledge, I have been neither thief, libertine, 
nor perjurer, but a very decent, moral sort of fellow, 
as men and husbands go. Not a millionth part good 
enough for you ! That I freely acknowledge, as I 
have, always. No man ever had a better wife, and 
few deserve such an one less than I. I am willing 
to affirm this upon oath. But of actual and inten- 
tional wrong against you, I am guiltless. Nor can I 
conceive what is the aim of the torrent of discon- 
nected assertions of your loyalty and my possible in- 
famy. May I demand an intelligible explanation?" 

She did not lift her head, but the left hand joined 
its fellow in screening her eyes ; both were pressed 
hard upon the closed lids ; she drew deep, painful 
breaths that shook her to her feet. However chimer- 
ical might be her imaginings, she suffered intensely. 
Richard touched her and spoke more gently, but 
decidedly : 

“ Madeline ! this is folly of the rankest sort ! I 
never saw you behave in this way before. It is baby- 
ish and wicked — unworthy — utterly unworthy of you. 
Look at me ! " 

She obeyed, with dry, miserable eyes, dull with 
pain, that seemed to have sunk in the sockets since he 
last met them. Her hand was cold, and when he 
took it lay passive in his hold. Figure and visage 
were those of one sick with failure, hopeless to 
despair. 

“ My precious wife ! " His kind heart gave way at 
sight of her distress. “What has excited you so un- 
reasopably ? It is not like you to go into high heroics 


A GALLAN2' FIGHT, 


239 


on any occasion, much less for no occasion whatso- 
ever. Can it be that after over twenty-one years of 
married life — ideal in perfectness of trust and hap- 
piness — you are allowing a groundless fancy of some 
mysterious offence on my part, some oversight or in- 
advertence, or omission — it could be nothing more — 
to shake your trust in one who has always been true 
to you in heart, word, and deed — ” 

A singular change in her countenance arrested his 
words upon his tongue. Leaning forward, her hands 
half raised, and motionless, she seemed to question 
him, dumbly and awfully, features rigid, the nostrils 
dilated for the respiration that would not come. Had 
she given him the challenge in fiery words, her mean- 
ing would not have been more directly conveyed. 
As one who has received a blow between the eyes, 
the husband struck back with the evilest energies of 
his nature. His eyes glared wolfishly upon her, he 
started to his feet and threw his hand high in the air : 

“ What do you mean by that look .? By heaven ! I 
will not endure it from you, or any created thing ! 
Only a fool ora devil would offer such an insult to her 
husband. If a 7naji looked at me as you do I’d kill 
him as he sat ! ” 

She pressed her hands before her face again, crouch- 
ing together in her chair — he almost believed she 
cringed under his fierce wrath — and moaning twice, 
three times — such sighs as sometimes drag the life out 
with them. 

He laid a hand on her shoulder, stooped to her ear, 
beside himself with the passion of a facile, self-loving 
nature under a wound to his self-esteem. 


2>40 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ We will make an end of this, Madeline ! I am 
perfectly cool, and conscious of what you have implied 
and what I am about to say. I swear by my hope of 
salvation — I call God to witness that I have never 
swerved from my fidelity to you, my lawful wife. I 
do not know who has been poisoning your mind with 
doubts, but I stamp each and all of them as infernal 
lies, more disgraceful to you than to me. Do you hear 
and understand me ? ” 

Pulling herself up by the elbows of her chair, she 
arose to her full height, deadly-white, but calmer 
than he. 

“ There ! that will do ! ” she said, faintly yet dis- 
tinctly. “ As you say, such scenes are useless and 
trying to us both. I beg your pardon for exciting you 
so painfully. The fault was mine in the beginning. 
I should not have introduced the subject, and lost 
command of myself. We will try to forget what has 
passed in the last half-hour.” 

She moved to pass him, but he detained her. 

“ That will not do ! You must retract your abom- 
inable charges.” 

“ I made none, Richard. ” 

“You did worse! Insinuations are cowardly as 
well as devilish.” 

“ It was a thorough misunderstanding on my part 
that led me to speak as I did. You are right in one 
thing. I have never known you, in all the years we 
spent together, until to-night. Again, I ask you to 
forgive me for spoiling what has been a very pleasant 
evening, and promise to be more on my guard for the 
future,” her voice gaining firmness. “ It will not do 


A GALLANT FIG LIT. 


241 


to risk a repetition of the disagreement. We will never 
allude to the matter after this. For our children’s 
sake, we must not quarrel. I hope you will not have a 
headache, to-morrow. I shall feel guilty if you do. 
I am going upstairs now. Can I do anything for 
you first ?” 

Her manner was so natural, so entirely her own, 
that he stood looking, at her, dazed and disarmed. 
Had he dreamed of the transformation, the storm, the 
conflict ? 

“ What did you say ? ” he inquired, stupidly. 

She almost smiled. 

“ I said that it is growing late, and asked if you 
would like a glass of wine, or ale, or ice-water, before 
I go upstairs. Or, if there is anything else I can do 
for your comfort.” 

“ Only this, my darling ! ” In the reaction of an 
affectionate heart, he took her in his arms and kissed 
her again and again. “ Forgive me, sweet wife, for 
my hot, brutal talk. I shall not find it easy to forgive 
myself for my impatience and rudeness to you, who 
never before gave me cause for anger.” 

She received the embrace in chill passivity, looked, 
moved and spoke, after he released her, like one be- 
numbed by shock or cold. 

At the door, she looked back, and put her hand to 
her head ; “ I am not very well to-night, Richard, 
and as the weather is so warm, I will sleep in the south 
room, I think ; good-night ! ” 

“ Madeline ! the south room ! ” The repetition 
escaped him unconsciously. “ Let me go to Paul’s 
room, instead, and leave you your own ! ” 


242 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ No, thank you ! Paul’s chamber is not in order. 
I shall do very well. It is cooler and quieter for you 
in your usual quarters.” 

With another “ good-night,” she left him. 

He hearkened, motionless, to her receding steps 
through the halls, then the turning of a key in a dis- 
tant door, before he lighted a cigar and sallied forth 
for a midnight parade on the asphaltum road leading 
from house to stables. He walked steadily and not 
fast, hands behind him and head depressed except that 
at each end of the long beat he paused to glance up 
at a corner window in which a yellow gleam struggled 
with the moonlight for half an hour, then was extin- 
guished. 

The windows, about which the honeysuckles had 
grown so rankly while the family was absent in 
foreign lands that the tough stems had to be hacked 
away from the closed shutters before they could be 
opened, belonged to the “ south room.” It had been 
Marion Bayard’s, and no one had slept there since she 
lay dead upon the bed awaiting burial. 


CHAPTER XII. 


S ALOME was the first of the family to appear below 
stairs on the following morning. 

The grass was dewless, the day sultry, even at this 
hour, and slumbrous with portent of coming rain. A 
heavy bank of clouds was ranged upon the western 
horizon. In the careless immunity from atmospheric 
influences that goes with perfect health and spirits, 
the girl thought the world was never lovelier ; inhaled 
the still, warm air as if it were fraught with ozone and 
cooled by passage over Mt. Blanc. She had business 
in hand that accounted for her early rising; vases and 
jars were to be replenished with fresh flowers, and she 
had it in her heart to cut a basket of choice roses, the 
summer’s generous second growth, to be sent with 
her love and her mother’s to Mrs. Rufus Lee. The 
larger basket on her left arm, intended for the home- 
supply, was nearly filled, and a few selected beauties 
were laid carefully in the smaller, when she saw Rex 
Lupton striding up the slope by the direct route he 
had taken last night. 

He waved the open convolvulus over his head be- 
fore he was near enough to speak, and she ran down 
the walk to meet him. 

“ The victory is mine, then?” she said, joyfully. 

“ First riz ! ” What had come to the man of sedate 
and polished speech to plunge him into the depths of 


243 


244 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


the slang he abhorred ? “I did all I could to force 
judgment in my favor, by putting it in a vase and 
leaving it on the piazza-roof under my window, where 
the sun would not touch it before noon, but it stayed 
wide awake all night. I am convinced that it comes 
of dissipated stock — that it sprang from a bacchana- 
lian root. Look at its complexion ! It is absolutely 
apoplectic ! ” 

Shame on you ! Let me have the darling ! She 
is as lovely as Aurora’s self — the apotheosis of a 
convolvulus — a thrice-glorified morning-and-night 
glory ! I shall mark the vine on which she grew, and 
save the seed to plant under my window next spring. 

‘ Bacchanalian ! apoplectic ! ’ I blush for your 
vocabulary. See where the light shines through it ! ” 

The trumpet-shaped stem of the opened chalice 
was tenderest rose color, translucent and ineffably 
soft and pure ; the curving brim was velvety-purple, 
rayed with a five pointed star of deep carmine. The 
stately stamen arose from the heart like a cream- 
tinted altar taper. Enthroned upon the green calyx 
and straight stalk, Aurora’s child looked fearlessly up 
at the sky. 

“ It is very lovely ! ” Rex said in a changed tone. 
“ I wish, since it is yours, that I could keep it from 
fading — like all other beautiful things ! ” 

Then we must make the best of them while we 
have them. Happily, nothing can take the memory 
of beauty from us. That is immortal. We can always 
recollect how our Aurora looks at this minute.” 

To native sunniness of temperament she joined 
courage that never faltered. She willed to be happy, 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


245 


and that those she loved and liked should walk in the 
light with her. ■ The more sombre nature of the man 
who sauntered through the rose thickets and alleys 
with her, as she continued the task of choosing and 
clipping buds and blossoms, basked and expanded 
with the mere contiguity. When the work was done, 
they paused for last words upon the piazza steps. 

The honeysuckles bloom here from May to 
November ! ” said Salome, reaching up her gardening 
scissors to sever a spray bending down to touch her 
head. “ The scent is inseparably connected in my 
mind with this place and porch. Who is it that calls 
the associativeness of odors ‘ the memory of the 
imagination ’ ? ” 

“ I do not know,’' abruptly. “ So you cannot say 
positively whether or not you will ride with me this 
afternoon ? ” 

“ Not until I consult mamma. I shall enjoy it 
dearly, and I know of nothing to prevent it. But I 
always refer such questions to her. If you hear 
nothing to the contrary, you may call for me at four 
o’clock. I thought this was to be a busier day than 
yesterday ? ” saucily glancing up from the branch she 
was trimming, and startled by the earnestness of his 
gaze. 

“ Give me a piece of that and put it yourself into 
my button-hole to console me for losing my wager on 
the morning-glory — won't you ? ” he said, as abruptly 
as he had spoken a while before. 

Something in accent or look — the words were 
nothing — brought the blood to her cheeks and stilled 
her vivacious tongue. Silently she cut a cluster of 


246 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


the odorous tubes, and as mutely, with down-drooping 
lids — pinned them on his lappel. As he stood on the 
step below, their faces were almost on a level. He 
made her lift the drooping lashes by the unspoken 
force of will ; gazed fixedly and far into her eyes, con- 
scious and shy for the first time in all their lives ; 
then bowed low, with uncovered head^ and was gone. 

Not a syllable was uttered by either of them after 
he asked for the honeysuckle — not so much as 
“ thank you ” and “ good-morning.” 

Salome’s flowers were disposed in vase and jar and 
bowl ; those intended for the parsonage on damp 
moss in a shallow basket, and screened by tissue- 
paper ready to be sent before her father descended to 
breakfast. Her cheeks were still pink, her eyes neither 
so merry nor quick as usual, when her mother called 
to her from the dining-room some minutes later. 

“ Salome, love ! have you seen papa this morning?” 

“ He is here, mamma ! I am just adorning him 
with his boutonniereF 

The family custom was to meet, exchange kisses, 
and receive Salome’s morning bouquets on the porch. 
It was a slight surprise when her mother called again : 

“ Will you come in to breakfast — both of you ? ” 

The apartment was shaded — rather too much 
darkened for eyes just brought in from the outer 
light. Salome laughed as she feigned to grope her 
way to her mother’s chair, and to fumble for the 
place on which the rosebud she had brought was to 
be set. 

“ Luck and love — not sight — guided me to your 
lips,” she added, after kissing her. 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


247 


‘‘You will get accustomed to the half-light, pres- 
ently. My head aches, and I have a troublesome 
pain in my eyes. We feel this first American summer 
more than I had_expected. Our Swiss and Norway 
seasons have'spoiled us for the dry continuous heat." 

Rich'ard stooped to kiss his wife more gently and 
affectionately than was his custom, if that were possi- 
ble. While she spoke, he passed his fingers lightly 
across her forehead. 

“ I hoped I had a monopoly of headaches. We 
cannot have you fall into so evil a habit at this late 
day. One offender in the house is enough.” 

“ If I ever marr}?-,” remarked Salome, as the busi- 
ness of the meal began with the basket of summer 
fruit, “ I hope my liege lord will take example by 
my father. But I have a presage that he will not be 
half so fond of me, nor one-quarter so true and gal- 
lant, so unremitting in les petits soins — such as paring 
fruit for my eating — after twenty odd years of wedded 
bliss, as you are with mamma. It is the prettiest 
thing I ever saw — the daily life of you two.” 

“ Perhaps you will not be such a nonpareil as a 
wife as mamma,” returned her father. “ I doubt if one 
century can produce two.” 

“James, I will ring when I need you!” Mrs. 
Phelps said to the butler, a sharp ring in her sudden 
address. Her forehead was knotted, her manner in- 
dicative of irritation as she continued to the two left 
with her in the room : “ I made a discovery this 

morning that annoyed me extremely. I slept in the 
south room, Salome, not feeling so well as usual. On 
throwing open the blinds when I arose, my eyes 




248 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


caught a flash of light from Mrs. Fitchett’s second- 
story window. It was the reflection of a spy-glass, 
and she was holding it, surveying our premises as de- 
liberately as she might an enemy’s camp. Of course, 
I drew back from the window, and did not go near it 
again. But, half an hour afterward, when I was quite 
dressed, I espied from the front window her daughter 
creeping stealthily into our lower gate, which is, you 
know, not visible from this floor. She made directly 
for that Norway fir at the left of the drive, and seemed 
to pick something from the other side of it, then ran 
away with her prize, whatever it might be, never stop- 
ping to look behind her until she reached home. The 
whole proceeding was extraordinary, and, to me, un- 
accountable. I do not relish such exhibitions of 
neighborly interest.” 

Her husband heard her with a countenance kin- 
dling into fun. His sense of the ridiculous was keen. 
The incident had but one side to him, and that was 
the comic. 

“ Her Majesty is irate ! ” he affected to communi- 
cate to Salome. “ We so seldom see her nettled that 
we may forgive neighbor Fitchett for granting us a 
new sensation. Yes, my love ! ” raising his voice and 
assuming a ferocious frown — “the opera-glass was 
bad enough, but the theft of the fir-apples was unpar- 
donable in the daughter of a woman who tells me she 
has the ‘ finest vei-acity of ch’ice fruits in all the 
State o’ J/^?^^’choositts.’ We must fence in that tree 
with barbed wire, and chain a dog at the lower 
gate.” 

“Seriously, papa, I think it very disagreeable to 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


249 

have one’s grounds raked by a scandal-loving woman 
at all hours of the day ! ” Salome answered, with 
heightened complexion. “ It is ill-natured, as well as 
ill-bred.” 

She was recalling the promenade among the rose- 
thickets, and, yet more vividly, the scene on the 
porch-steps. 

“ It makes one feel as if we lived in a glass-house. 
I am not surprised at mamma’s indignation.” 

Richard’s merry indifference was imperturbable. 

“ If we did live within glass walls, my dear, we 
should have less to dread. The trouble is not lest 
my buxom townswoman should report what she sees, 
but what she does not. Fortunately, her talents in 
that line are so notorious that she cannot harm us if 
she would, and I flatter myself that her good-will to- 
ward me as an old acquaintance — who admires her 
grapery and water-wheel, and listens patiently to the 
story of the bills, just and unjust, sent in for her 
house and ‘improvements’ — will not let her say 
anything unkind of us. Almiry is loud and vulgar 
and officious, and impertinent and curious, with a 
dozen or more other trifling drawbacks to polish of 
manner and general agreeableness, but she has a good 
heart, and is really a sincere friend of mine. She 
would cut off her hand — rings and all — rather than 
wound or injure me. I make it a rule to keep on ex- 
cellent terms with people whose lands adjoin mine.” 

Salome spoke hastily, stealing a look at her moth- 
er’s grave face and lowered eyes. It made her ner- 
vous and a little ashamed when her father expressed 
his opinion of himself so naively. 


250 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Nevertheless, papa, no one with the barest in- 
stincts of a gentlewoman would descend to the spy- 
glass, and she is the ‘ leading lady ’ in Mr, Lee’s 
church ! That is what one of his parishioners 
called her the other day in my hearing. Heaven help 
those who are led ! ” 

“ Amen ! ” responded Richard, cordially, “ Mad- 
eline, dear, we must return the Lees’ call very 
soon, and do all we can to mitigate the hardships of 
their lot, I should like, if convenient to you, to have 
them and Hollis, with, perhaps, Mrs, Lupton, to din- 
ner soon after I return from Boston,” 

“ Whenever you like, Salome and I will call with- 
in a day or two,” 

She struck the bell for James, and the talk rolled 
away from personalities, Salome and her father sus- 
tained the burden of it, Mrs, Phelps was colorless 
and quiet, eating little, and seldom volunteering a 
remark. When they left the table, she went directly 
to the conference with cook and butler which gener- 
ally succeeded a half-hour spent with her husband on 
the piazza, while he enjoyed the cigar Freehold prin- 
ciples banished from his office. As he smoked, it 
was her custom to read aloud such items of daily 
news as she knew would interest him, and to join in 
his comments upon them, Salome seated herself 
near him this morning, but neither touched the paper 
lying on the stand hard by. 

Mrs. Lupton would have seen, by daylight, that 
the girl’s chair commanded a section of the outer 
world framed in the rift in the vines through which 
she and the moon had regarded one another the 


A GALLANT FIGH T. 


251 


night before. The astute widow would likewise 
have discovered, without asking questions or seem- 
ing to take notes, that the outlook took in the 
Lupton gateway, and the upper part of the 
cross-street terminating at the Lupton grounds. 
She would undoubtedly, moreover, have shifted 
her position in a perfectly natural and unpremed- 
itated manner, and seen everybody who crossed 
the field of observation. Fidelia Fitchett, smartly 
dressed, went by to school with a bevy of comrades, 
her sky-blue parasol and grass-green grenadine gown 
giving her the look of a biped butterfly ; then a baby- 
carriage, propelled by a nurse-maid, and the buggy of 
a bulky burgher on his way to business ; Gerald 
Lupton, on his pony, returning from a morning gallop, 
taking off his cap airily to his tall brother who passed 
out of the gate as he entered it ; Hollis Lee, whose 
matutinal walk always led him past the Phelps 
place — 

“ My daughter ! ” 

The girl started as her father addressed her in a 
low, impressive tone. He had awaited the appear- 
ance of his reader, drawing upon his cigar in a lei- 
surely way, while the mass of horizon clouds mounted 
slowly toward the sun, and the morning freshness — 
what there was of it — died utterly. Salome imagined 
that he was pondering business matters, easing her 
conscience for her wordless reverie by supposing that 
interruption of his would be an intrusion. 

“ Yes, papa ! ” withdrawing her eyes from her 
lookout, and observing his serious, almost anxious 
face. 


252 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


I go to Boston at six o’clock this afternoon. If 
the business that calls me there were less important, I 
would not leave your mother just now. I am not 
satisfied as to the state of her health. Something — 
the hot weather, or possibly a slight malarial ten- 
dency — a malign influence of some kind — is telling 
upon her. I have never seen her spirits so variable 
before as during the past few days. You heard her 
say that she was not well last night. I found her 
almost hysterical from the indulgence of morbid fan- 
cies when I got home. This morning, her head 
aches — also an unusual thing with her. Should the 
shower we are likely to have unless the wind gets 
under that cloud, cool the air, I will coax her to drive 
with me for an hour after lunch, and try to cheer her 
up. While I am away, I trust you to watch over her. 
She enjoys no other society as she does yours—” 

“ Except yours, papa ! ” 

He went on without heeding the amendment : “ I 
owe so much more to her than most men to their 
wives— comfort, healing, life itself — she has been so 
loyal, so brave, patient, and loving — that I tremble at 
every shadow of evil that may threaten her. Ah ! 
my darling ! ” rising to meet his wife, as she emerged 
from the hall door — “ I was afraid your head was 
worse. The heat is terrific, but we will have rain by- 
and-by. I must hurry off, now. The shower will 
take the oppressiveness out of the air, and break the 
drought, I hope. We all feel the depressing influ- 
ence of the murky weather. Should the afternoon be 
fine, I shall make time to give you a drive. These 
pale cheeks ” — his arm was about her, and he drew 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


253 


her toward the upper end of the porch. Salome 
might easily be mistaken in what she thought was the 
import of the lowly-uttered conclusion of the sen- 
tence. Why should the leal lover, whom the admir- 
ing daughter would have her ideal husband resemble, 
add— ‘ are a silent reproach to me ? ” 

Why, also, except that she was unused to the head- 
ache that hung about her this sultry morning, should 
the smile with which her mother received her father’s 
parting kiss be as sickly as the fast fading sunlight t 
The two never disagreed openly. The one was too 
sweet-tempered in the main, too tender of heart, even 
when ruffled, too manly and too just, to lose the 
sense of what was due to the woman who honored 
his name, while bearing it. The other — 

“ There was never another like you, mamma ! ” 
cried the girl, at this point of her meditations, fold- 
ing her suddenly in her arms, and laying the rosy 
cheek against the pale one. “I don’t wonder papa 
worships you ! He was talking to me, as you joined 
us, of how much he is your debtor — how much dearer 
you are to him as time goes on.” 

“Are you in the conspiracy to flatter me out of my 
wits ? ” returning the embrace. Her lips were chill 
and unpliant ; there was no resonance in her tone, 
and she subjoined, hurriedly. “The wind is rising I 
It will bring the shower upon us before we are ready 
for it ! There is a flash of lightning ! It is said 
that September thunderstorms are peculiarly destruc- 
tive, and morning electricity more deadly than that 
which comes later in the day. Run upstairs, dear, 
and see that the shutters are fast and the sashes 


254 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


closed on the windward side of the house. Don’t 
come down again, but go at once to your studies ! ” 

Without demur, the child obeyed. Her mother’s 
manner was unnatural, but she meant what she said. 
Had she bidden her walk into the outer air, charged 
with storm, bareheaded, and march up and down the 
terrace until the rain was over, she would have gone 
as readily and unquestioningly. 

Mrs. Phelps remained on the piazza while the 
clouds broke in fire and flood. Withdrawm into the 
latticed corner, once appropriated to Rex and 
Marion, she sat just beyond the wash of the rain, 
lashed into spray, that flew along the floor almost to 
her feet. The heavens stooped between her and the 
nearest spires, the darkness swallowed her up except 
when the lightnings showed her face, pallid in the 
blue blaze like a sad ghost against the dense back- 
ground of vines. She did not move or speak for 
gloom or glare ; her eyes stared into the fierce heart 
of the tempest ; her fingers were knotted upon one 
another as though strangling something caught 
between the palms. Physical pain was so rare with 
her that it told severely upon spirits and mien. Yet 
so brave a woman would, it might be thought, be less 
easily daunted by a foreign foe. 

She was lying down when Richard came home to 
the early dinner ordered on account of his journey. 
Entering her room with soundle.ss tread, he stood by 
the lounge before she was aware of his presence. 
Her eyes were closed, but the hard fold between the 
brows, the droop of the lines in the lower part of the 
face, the clutch of the fingers of the right hand upon 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 255 

a plait of her gown, told that she was not asleep, 
and that the suffering had not been succeeded by 
prostration. She gave a violent start, and uttered a 
faint cry at the sound of his voice, then trembled, as 
in an ague. 

He knelt by her and pillowed her head upon his 
heart. 

“ My dearest love ! don’t you think you have 
punished yourself sufficiently for my cruel, unmanly 
behavior of last night ? Can’t you forget, as well as 
forgive^? We have lived and loved together too long 
to cherish wounded feelings — don’t you think so? 
Teach me how to bring back the smiles to your lips, 
sweet one. I cannot live without them ! ” 

My head aches intensely 1 ” she said, her lips 
quivering, and whitening. “ Don’t think there is any 
other cause for anxiety. I shall be better, now that 
the weather is changing. Let me get up ! I did not 
know it was so late.” 

Withstanding her movement to rise, he rear- 
ranged and cooled her pillows, bathed her temples 
and wrists with the delicate deftness of a practised 
nurse, and begged her to “ try to sleep for his sake ” 
until he should come up again. 

So speedily that he must have hurried his dinner 
to expedite his return, he brought up a tray on which 
was a Sevres tea-equipage, a silver rack of toast, a 
broiled woodcock, and a cluster of luscious grapes. 
With the playful tenderness that became him better 
than any other mood, he poured out the tea, carved 
the bird, and fed her with it, chatting in low restful 
tones, and forbidding her to reply. . 


256 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Salome and I had a pitched battle over this tray/* 
he declared. “ It has been so long since either of us 
had a chance to minister to you as an invalid, that we 
were emulous of the privilege. I believe she would 
rob me of pur drive, if she could. Now, my blessing ! 
the color is coming back to your lips, and your eyes 
are less languid. I made up my mind when I saw 
you this noon that I would not leave you for any 
business trip, however urgent.” 

“But you will ! ” with rallying animation. “You 
see how much better I am. The tea has quite relieved 
the pain in my head. The drive will complete the 
cure.” 

With a touch of habitual energy, she made ready 
for the jaunt, Salome being graciously permitted by 
her “ rival ” to assist at her mother’s toilette, while he 
went below stairs to smoke a post-prandial cigar. 

“ Mr. Lupton has invited me to ride with him at 
four o’clock,” the girl said, imitating her father’s 
soothing accents and quiet action. There was balm 
for the raw nerves in each intonation, magic in the 
sweep of the soft fingers through the unbound hair, 
the lulling touches that fastened the tresses into place. 
“ I have not given him a definite reply because I could 
not bear to leave you if you were to remain at home. 
Have you the least objection to my going ? ” 

“ None, my love. I am glad Rex can give himself 
the little recreation. He is a safe, elder-brotherly 
attendant. “ Say ‘ good-by’ to papa before we go, 
as you will not see him again. His train leaves at 
six. The rain has laid the dust. The roads will be 
in fine order.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


257 


So composed was her demeanor, so natural her 
complexion and smile, that the daughter went 
gayly down to see her off. Richard put his wife 
into the low-hung phaeton, built expressly for her use 
under his supervision. The exceeding tenderness 
of touch, look, and voice were blent with something 
that was pleading or deprecatory. He might only 
now have arrived at a just appreciation of her value, 
and found it impossible to tolerate his previous 
blindness. 

Through an iridescent tear-mist Salome saw them 
disappear in the elm-shaded street leading to the 
lower town, but there was neither consciousness nor 
prevision of evil in her mind. Nor did she question 
herself as to the cause of the readiness of sympathy 
with the wedded lovers which brought the sun-mists 
to heart and eyes, the strange sweet aching that 
made her lay her hand on her chest, as she repeated 
aloud : 

How they love one another ! ” 

Richard Phelps was a brilliant talker when he 
chose to exert himself. He took as much pains, 
to-day, to adapt themes and treatment to his com- 
panion’s taste as would the wiliest courtier in the 
hearing of royalty. He had an encouraging auditor. 
Quite restored to herself, Mrs. Phelps led him on to. 
his best, and the knowledge of success which is the 
speaker’s surest inspiration. All Freehold was abroad 
in the delicious weather ; the wet roads, shining with 
sinking pools of fragrant rain, were populous with 
pleasure-seekers. 

Sensible in them ! ” observed Richard — “ but too 


258 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


much like a Derby day to suit a man who wants to 
have a tite-a-tete with the woman of his heart, and this 
continual crook of the elbow hat-brimward is a bore. 
We will try this new road. My townspeople have 
civic ambitions. They have graded, straightened, 
ironed out and criss-crossed the dear old irregular 
country highways with embryo boulevards, but I think 
I can find my way to a lovely nook the children and 
I dropped down upon one day. Salome recollected it, 
but Paul did not. Both cried out at once that 
‘ Mamma must see it ! ’ As I told you this noon, 
Salome contends with me for the honor of serving you, 
and if I ever have occasion to call a fellow out for 
making love to my wife it will be my own son. Will 
you hold the reins one moment, please ? ” 

He leaped over the wheel, and climbed a steep bank 
at the top of which grew a sweetbrier rose-tree, yellow 
and mossy and straggling, but lifting aloft on the 
uppermost spray, as if to keep it beyond the reach of 
meddling hands, a tuft of scented leaves, a single 
perfect flower and three or four buds. Mrs. Phelps 
was especially fond of this hardy, delicate wildling of 
our waysides, and her husband never forgot one of 
her preferences. He was scrambling down the bank 
when the Fitchett landau, all varnish and silver 
plating, whirled around a bend in the road. The 
widow and Mrs. Tom Johnston were on the back 
seat, Fidelia on the front. 

^ “ Hole up, Charley ! ” called the pebbly tones of 

the relict. “ Good day, Mrs. Phelps ! How d’do, 
Richard ! F’ th’ land’s sake, what be you goin’ to 
do with th’ briers ? ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


259 - 


Richard bowed and laughed. 

“ They are for my wife. The sweetbrier is her 
favorite rose.” 

“ I want t’ know ! 'T’s kind o’ queer, too, that a lady 
with nigh ’pon a half-acre o’ expensious roses, sh’d 
resk you breakin’ your neck fo’ a bramble-bush. I 
only hope she won’t throw ’em away before she gits 
home ! That’s th’ latest fashion, I’m tole ! Go on, 
Charley ! Good-by t’ you both ! ” 

“ What does she mean ? ” queried Mrs. Phelps, 
looking after the gorgeous equipage. 

“ Some malodorous crumb of gossip, you may be 
sure ! ” Richard climbed back into his seat. “ Noth- 
ing that concerns us or ours, thank heaven ! The 
impertinent familiarity of her class is irresistibly 
funny to one who can afford to laugh at it. That 
woman learned her letters from the same nice, elderly 
spinster who taught me mine, and at the same time. 
She was never within my father’s doors. I doubt if 
my mother or sisters knew her by sight. But she es- 
tablishes a social equilibrium by calling me “ Richard.” 
Whether she pulls herself up, or drags me down, is 
not for me to say.” 

“ She inspires me with curious aversion,” pursued 
Mrs. Phelps, thoughtfully. “ I should say that she is 
not only disagreeable, but dangerous. Were I in Mr. 
Lee’s place, I would rather she was out of the church 
than in it, I would not care for the loyalty of a 
parish that can be shaken by the defection of such a 
woman.” 

“ It is bread-and-butter, my love ! In this case, it 
is gilded gingerbread and gilt-edged butter. She is 


26 o 


A GALLANT FLGIJT. 


the richest woman in Freehold. Were she to leave 
the ‘ Old North Hill/ the ways of that Zion would — 
a la Mantalini — ‘weep and howl most demnibly.’ ” 

. “ The adverb suits the case ! ” with a slightly bitter 
smile. 

Now and then she had the manner of one who 
draws away from a dangerous verge, and forces her- 
self to think of other people and things. 

“ Richard ! ” 

“ Well, my pet ? ” 

“ Would you object to taking a pew in Mr. Lee’s 
church ? ” 

“ I object to nothing you propose, sweet wife. I 
have thought of the same thing myself. Lee is an 
able man and a better preacher than our nominal 
pastor whom we hardly know as yet. And it would 
please Hollis.” 

“ It might give support where support is needed. 
The sweet, tired face of that little pastoress haunts 
me,” Mrs. Phelps continued, still musingly ; “ I long 
to help her in some way. Her position is* one of ser- 
vile, ignoble bondage. There ought to be a special 
training-school for the wives of ministers who are to 
settle in such places and churches as one finds here- 
about — a curriculum prescribed that should make 
them mindful of ‘ church and society.’ Educa- 
tion in young ladies’ seminaries should be con- 
ducted with wise regard to ecclesiastical isothermal 
lines.” 

Richard looked intensely amused. Her sallies 
always delighted him. 

“ You are hard on my congeners, little woman ! 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


261 


Remember that your husband is a member — born and 
bred — of the Society, if not of the Church — ” 

His laugh ceased suddenly. They had swept 
sharply around an angle of the wooded highway into 
a cross-road, plunging downward into a hemlock 
wood. 

Mrs. Phelps started forward convulsively, and laid 
her hand on the reins. 

“ Where are you taking me ? ” 

“ My love ! what is it ? The hill is steep, but per- 
fectly safe. Can’t you trust my driving ? There ! we 
are over the pitch. This — ” checking the horse — “ is 
what the children and I wanted you to see.*’ 

They had come, by one of the newly-cut roads, into 
the “ oratory ” she had promised Marion Bayard 
should be forever sacred to memories of her. The 
arched opening in the hemlocks had been artificially 
enlarged, so that a broader expanse of hill, meadow, 
river and town was included in the dark-green frame. 
Instead of cloudy battlements, such as she and 
Marion had beheld at their last visit to the spot, the 
western sky was perfectly clear and of a subdued 
topaz-yellow, melting into the sapphire of the zenith. 

Richard put a gentle hand on his wife’s which still 
trembled. 

“ Hush ! listen ! they will begin again in a minute ! ” 
he whispered. 

A sudden passion of color rolled up from the west, 
— a rush of crimson, rose and pink, effacing the yellow, 
and flushing the tranquil river, as if a great rain of 
peach-blooms had fallen there. The red-brown boles 
of the hemlocks started into relief against the 


262 


A- GALLANT FIGHT. 


shadowed heart of the grove ; the outermost branches 
shook gleaming fingers across the road. As if 
awakened by the pulse of light, a thrush called 
timidly and tentatively to his mate, who answered 
reassuringly. Another and another took heart of 
song until the dim recesses of the wood thrilled and 
throbbed with plaintive music. 

“ The thrush is the winged Memnon of our woods,” 
breathed Richard softly. “ There is something mys- 
terious in his salute to the rising and setting sun.” 

His wife threw off the loving hand that lingered on 
hers, tore at her throat to loosen the iron talons that 
forced blood-red blindness before her sight — the face 
but just now pallid as with the touch of death, had a 
vivid flush that was not the sunset’s. 

My God ! ” she gasped, “ I cannot bear it ! I 
cannot ! no ! no ! ” thrusting away the embrace that 
would comfort her — ‘‘ Not a word ! Only drive on ! 
get me away from this ! ” 

Richard complied without protest. Chagrined and 
perplexed, he yet recognized that the emotion which 
hurried his wife on to frenzy was ungovernable. 
Enigmatical it might ever remain to him, but it was 
fearfully real to her. He could not, in his ignorance, 
sympathize. He would not question. Other — per- 
haps most women were hysterically irrational at times. 
It was not Madeline’s way. 

They were in the lower road, in sight of the station, 
— when she spoke again : 

“ I shall be well and sensible when you come home. 
I have tried you sadly to-day. I beg your pardon.” 

Resentment, with Richard, never outlived the first 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


263 


penitent breath from the offender. His temper was 
like gun-cotton. The explosion left no mark, pro- 
vided always that the self-love fostered by years of 
prosperity and petting was not abraded. 

The warm, blue eyes softened instantly into fond- 
ness, now ; the face bent upon her was pure pity and 
love. 

“ ‘ Pardon ’ and love like mine are not to be named 
in the same breath, sweet wife ! You have not offended 
me. You are not to blame for a highly-excited state 
of nerves which my clumsy efforts at soothing have 
but increased. Whatever you might do — ” this with 
growing earnestness — “ were you to break my heart or 
— if it were possible to imagine such a thing — to sully 
my honor, I should forgive you, whether you asked 
me to do it, or not ; would live with and for you as 
long as you would let me. 

“ But a truce to heroics ! Here is the station, and 
there comes Hollis to drive you home. I was not 
willing to trust the reins, with Sindbad at the other 
end of them, ter these shaky little hands to-day, so 
told him to meet us here. Good-by, my precious 
one ! God bless and keep you safely for me ! Let me 
have a line to-morrow to tell me how you are ; I shall 
write every day, of course.” 

Hollis Lee’s perceptions were fine. A glance at 
the lady’s countenance told him that the tone of her 
spirits was less firm than usual. He said little, and 
covered the taciturnity of both by feigned preoccupa- 
tion in the task of threading their way in and out of the 
string of vehicles about the station and in the business 
streets. He hoped, in his unworld-worn singleness 


264 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


of heart, that, should he ever win the woman he loved, 
she would feel a separation for a few days as her 
mother did after twenty years of wedded happiness. 

In the avenue leading by the Fitchett and Phelps 
places, they met the rich widow’s carriage. She had 
set Mrs. Tom Johnston down at her own door, and 
was discoursing cluckingly to her daughter. 

Screeching like a superannuated blue-jay ! ” Hollis 
reported to his sister-in-law. “ She sets my teeth on 
edge, and I think I have the same effect on her. 
She nodded at me as a rickety poker might, if afraid 
of losing its head, and her grimace was a snarl.” 

He sprang whistling up the stairs. He had no 
excuse for calling upon Salome this evening, but had 
not her parents set the stamp of approval upon her 
innocent admission that he was “quite one of the 
family,,” by choosing him as her mother’s charioteer 
in the sight of all the town ? Moreover, Mr. Phelps 
had left office and business entirely in his hands for a 
week — possibly longer. 

Ethel had selected five glorious Jacqueminot roses, 
each the mate of that worn by Salome, over night, 
from the basket sent to her that morning, and put 
them in her prettiest vase, to grace his study-table. 
The boy stood looking down into their royal hearts, 
a glow with purple flame, until his eyes were dim — 
then raised them to his lips. 

“ I think heaven must be made up of such spirits 
as my sweet sister, and that mother and daughter ! ” 
he said, reverently. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


TTfHAT a busy look a field of Indian corn 

VV has!” 

Salome Phelps reined in her horse at a wayside 
field to say it. 

It was the largest maize-field for miles around. The 
serried lances, glossy and gleaming after the rain, 
stretched over the comb of the hill, like an armed 
host in close line of battle. 

“ The tossing blades and saucy tasselsj the staunch 
stalks, the general pointedness and alertness of the 
massed rows, remind us that it is indigenous to Amer- 
ica,” continued the girl. “ It is native — through and 
through ! You know that Mr. Jefferson designed a 
sheaf of maize as the capital of a shaft that should be 
the beginning of a national school of architecture, It 
was never adopted — more’s the pity ! Papa has a fine 
cut of it. It makes one angry, as he looks at it, to 
think how we persist in anachronizing the homes of 
the New World by Ionic pillars and Corinthian capi- 
tals. Ah, well ! Everything comes right in time. 
We must wait a century or two.” 

She shook her bridle, and they cantered up the 
slope. Close against the fence of the great corn-field 
grew what Salome called “ a misplaced section of the 
Adirondacks” — a wide belt of magnificent pines, 
shooting up forty or fifty feet straight heavenward 
265 


266 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


before sending out a bough, then broadening, like 
umbrella-palms, into canopies of verdure. Nothing 
grew beneath them ; the equestrians rode freely 
through the long aisles ; the horses’ hoofs were muf- 
fled by the springy bed of fallen needles and cones. 
The boughs talked together far overhead, as the sea 
breaks hoarsely on the sands ; the place had the calm 
awfulness of a cathedral — the dimness, the fragrance, 
and the peace for body and spirit. 

Again the riders drew rein by tacit consent and 
hearkened with bowed head to the soughing branches. 

“ We need but the arbutus underfoot,” said Salome, 
drawing a long, deep breath. 

“ I need 7iothing ! ” The young man was very pale, 
but his eyes glowed ; the uprising of a long-sealed 
torrent was in his voice. “ Nothing — while you are 
here, or with me anywhere. When you are not, I 
need everything that makes life worth living. This is 
rank presumption in me ! You cannot feel it more 
strongly than I. It came over me just now, when 
you spoke of national architecture and Jefferson’s 
design — when, in one sentence, you painted the maize- 
field — how much you know, and what use you make 
of your knowledge — how high your thought is, how 
graceful your speech, and what an ignorant hulk I 
am — ” 

“ Dear friend ^ you shall not depreciate yourself so 
cruelly in my presence ! You, whose life is one long 
deed of heroism ! Others talk — you do ! ” 

The girl’s cheeks were flickering flames ; her speech 
was low and hurried ; involuntarily she stretched her 
hand toward him. It was seized and held. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 267 

“ Child ! ” huskily. “ Do not lift me up to heaven 
to cavSt me down to hell ! ” 

She tried to laugh up into his agitated visage ; her 
hand stirred in his grasp. 

“ Fie ! what a naughty word ! ” 

But at what she read in his burning gaze, her head 
drooped until the hat-brim hid all but the lips through 
which the breath went pantingly, and the rounded, 
trembling chin. For a brief interval there was silence 
between them, overflowed by the surge of the pines. 

“ Salome ! ” in a low voice, freighted with feeling. 

“ Yes — Rex” her tone lower than his. 

“ Am I too old for you ? ” 

She shook her head, an arch dimple in the cheek 
next to him visible under her hat. 

“ Too grave ? too bias/ ? too commonplace ? I am 
not young, or gifted, or handsome, dear, and, up to 
the May-day of our meeting, my life had more shadow 
than sunlight in it. But I love you as fervently and 
purely as ever man loved woman. If you will accept 
the poor gift, all that I am, all that I may make of 
myself in the new day that would dawn with the hope 
of winning your love — shall be yours, unreservedly 
and forever. Will you take it ? ” 

“ Yes— Rex ! " 

The high-road from which they had diverged was 
less than fifty yards distant, sunken by some feet 
below the level of the pine-grove, and the embank- 
ment on that side closely fringed with golden-rod and 
asters. The screen was impervious save at one point 
— a gap a few fe®fc wide, through which the water from 
the higher ground escaped to the roadside ditch. 


268 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


By one of the coincidences too frequent and con- 
sistently perverse to be reckoned as accidents, a lady 
and a boy in a village-cart were passing the wood at the 
moment the second affirmative faltered from the girl’s 
lips. The lad who drove was observant of his horse, 
a skittish pony, his mother of everything in general 
and nothing in particular, until a tableau, far enough 
• removed to give it the effect of an impressionist pic- 
ture, was revealed by the depression aforesaid. 

In a quarter of a twinkling she had thrown the pony 
almost back on his haunches, was on her feet, and 
shaking her skirts energetically. 

“ Gerald ! I have dropped my glove ! One of a 
new pair, too ! I pulled it off when you got out to 
gather the fringed gentian, so it cannot be very far 
back. Jump out and look for it, dear ! ” 

The boy obeyed with alacrity. He thought his 
mother “ a first-rate lot,” and was ready to please 
her when, by so doing, he ran no chance of displeasing 
himself. She was still standing in the vehicle, and he 
some yards away, when she called after him in merry 
apology : 

“ Here, my darling ! There it is — right between 
the wheels ! It is too bad to give you so much 
trouble, even for my best Paris glove — for which I 
sent all the way to New York. I shan’t forget how 
willing you were to hunt for it.” 

So still was the country road that the lovers might 
have heard her voice, and probably recognized it, but 
for the ceaseless murmur in the tree-tops and the 
tumult of the hurrying heart-beats. As it was, they 
rode on, presently, ignorant and ecstatic, in a serenity 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


269 

of transport that lent acuteness to eye and ear, and 
stilled the tongue for a time. Of what use were words 
to express the glory that had fallen upon the world 
for them ? 

The way grew more sequestered, winding into din- 
gles where the slanting sunbeams produced weird and 
witching transformations of the commonest forms of 
lowly things, glancing from fallen wet leaves and de- 
caying boughs, and lighting up gorgeous fungi, disks 
of lake and ochre that encircled dead stumps and 
thrust up bold, round heads from beds of emerald 
mosses. Raindrops frosted the bowing, bearded 
grasses, glittered and twinkled from lanceolate sedges. 
On the extremest tip of a wild-rose streamer, a quiv- 
ering, scintillating blue diamond swung and broke, 
while they exclaimed upon it. 

Was there ever such another afternoon and ride ? 
Out of the woods into ways that wound leisurely be- 
tween farm-fences and avenues man’s hand had 
spared but not planted — where dogwood trees, stiff 
and sturdy, were studded with green, white and black 
berries, and maple-boughs kindled into premature 
blaze, as if ignited by chance sparks dropped from 
the torch which autumn would, in another month, ap- 
ply to the whole forest. Fern-beds with delicate 
lacey foliations, and countless tossing, serrated fronds, 
lined the fences ; golden-rod edged the streams with 
closely-woven chains of barbaric splendor. The world 
was an open missal bound and illuminated with green- 
and-gold, and set with all manner of precious jewels. 

Red-stemmed Virginia creepers, profligate of use- 
less fruit — small beryl spheres, also scarlet-stemmed 


270 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


— ramped over fence and stony field, and clambered 
aloft to strangle despondent cedars. A deserted farm- 
cottage, with gambrel roof, stood at the intersection 
of the highway with a grass-grown lane. Lilac trees, 
the leaves gray with must, grew up to the eaves, hid- 
ing all the front windows. Their roots had heaved 
the flat door-step ; suckers shot up athwart the thres- 
hold where little children used to play, and old people 
bask in the low sun that now fell blankly on warping 
panels and rusted latch. The palings were gone from 
the garden at the back in which coarse, vulgar weeds, 
that would reach a tall man’s chin, ran to seed. One 
tiger-lily, dauntless in desertion and defiant of decay, 
pushed a head of tawny fire out of tangled rankness, 
to stare and nod at the sun. 

Moving, thinking and speaking — when he did speak 
— like a man in a rapturous dream, Rex alighted, 
gathered the audacious beauty, and gave it to Salome, 
who pinned it on the lappel of her habit. 

Past and future were not to either of them. Through 
all the time they had known, it seemed to have been 
ordained that they should ride thus, side by side, 
much of the way with linked hands, always indissolu- 
bly one in heart, in a blissful eternal Now, through 
the New Jerusalem of love where death was changed 
to beauty, brightness into glory unspeakable. 

It was half an hour after sunsetting, when they 
made their last halt on the brow of a long-backed 
eminence overlooking the town. A broad, low arc of 
shadow lay above the horizon line, the slowly-mount- 
ing penumbra of the earth, as the sun sank below the 
uppermost curve of the globe. A pale, blue-gray 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


271 


shadow, that would presently enfold a hemisphere in 
night. Higher than this lay a curved band of ash- 
rose, fading above into twilight mistiness. Below, the 
hills lowered their crests and stretched themselves 
out to sleep. On the edge of the rose-flushed band 
hung a single white planet, large and tremulous with 
the vibrant twinkle of a lamp that still swings from 
the touch of the hand that lighted it. 

“ Dear, beautiful world ! ” was Salome’s happy 
sigh. “ Don’t you love it with all its scars and faults ?” 

Noiv ? yes ! ” 

The avenues of the upper town were deep with 
twilight shade and hush ; the smell of the rain lin- 
gered lovingly in the air ; soft darkness that might 
be felt, and was a benediction to over-taxed nerves, 
brooded under the elms. They entered the home- 
stead grounds from a back street, and alighted at the 
stables, leaving the horses in the care of the waiting 
groom. 

In nearing the house they heard the piano, and a 
voice crooning a hymn. The only light in the front 
of the mansion was in the hall. Door and windows 
were open, and, pausing in the vine shadows, they 
could discern the outline of the white figure at the 
instrument. Rex passed his arm about his betrothed, 
and drew her to him, the hearts of both throbbing 
hard and painfully with the instant flight of memory 
to another night when they had listened in the same 
place to the same voice. 

It was no fond improvisation now, no grateful out- 
pouring of the wifely “ love that loves alway.” Un- 
conscious of any audience beside that of the ear ever 


272 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


bowed to the cry of pain, she sang quaint old words 
to an air yet more quaint and old, both learned in 
childhood from her Southern mother : 

“Thy promise is my only plea, 

With this I venture nigh ; 

Thou callest burdened souls to Thee, 

And such, O Lord ! am I. 

Remember me! remember me! 

Dear Lord! remember me! 

Remember all Thy dying groans. 

And then — remember me! " 

And, again, with fingers that just touched the keys, 
and tones that just reached the listeners without, in 
what was rather a sob than a song, the two last lines, 
over and over : 

“ Thou callest burdened souls to Thee — 

And such, O Lord! am //” 

The lovers drew back into the denser shade of the 
embowered piazza, clinging together with a strange 
prescience of impending sorrow overcasting the divine 
calm of their newly-found joy. Rex tightened the 
embrace about the lithe waist until the dear head 
rested on his breast. At the shudder that ran over 
him, Salome looked up — her own frank, fearless ges- 
ture ; — he could see through the gloom the shine of 
her brave eyes. 

“Nothing can go very far wrong with us now!” 
she whispered. 

With the kiss, which was his only reply, warm on her 
mouth, she put her hand within his arm and walked 
with him through the French window into her mother’s 
presence. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


273 


Mamma, dear ! ” a light, fluttering laugh, musical 
as a robin’s call, betraying the nervousness mingled 
with her happiness. “ Don’t scold us for staying out 
late. Something happened.” 

“ My love ! an accident ? Were you hurt ? ” 

“ It was not an accident ! ” said Rex, joining in 
the laugh the agitated girl could not repress. “If 
you will allow me, I will tell you all about it, while 
Salome changes her habit.” 

The daughter escaped while he spoke. The light 
from the hall-lamp struck full upon the mother’s 
figure, erect, motionless, statuesque, in her colorless 
draperies — her countenance eloquent of what looked 
to the conscious suitor like stern surprise. He would 
not have been mortal had not his first sensation, when 
left alone with her, been one of disagreeable embar- 
rassment, recollecting, as she must, also, that he had 
once before approached her on a like delicate errand. 
His second was intensest self-scorn that a boyish ex- 
perience should have power to detract from the proud 
fruition of the man’s desireful hope. 

He made an impetuous step forward that brought 
him within the illuminated area about her, — held out 
his hand with a smile that warmed and colored his 
face into beauty : 

“You have known me for eight yearSy mother/ie / 
Can you trust me to try to make your daugh- 
ter happy ? I think you know that I will do my 
best.” 

She wavered backward, and caught the piano to 
steady herself. 

“ Rex ! Salome ! Do you mean it ? ” 


274 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


Then with passionate emphasis for which he was 
not prepared, — 

How much love — what kind of love can you give 
a child with her depth of heart, her capacity for af- 
fection ? I never dreamed of this ! Where were my 
eyes ? where was my maternal instinct ? I have been 
blind, selfish, — unmotherly ! My little daughter ! 
My baby ! ” 

She covered her eyes with her hand and moaned, 
sinking upon the music-stool as if strength and cour- 
age had deserted her. 

Rex bent one knee to the floor, and raised the 
fingers she still held to his lips. 

“ Dear Mrs. Phelps ! my almost mother ! will you 
listen to me ? Neither of us feigns forgetfulness of 
my early dream. It is no dishonor to the memory of 
the dead to say that my love for your child goes far 
deeper than did the passion of the boy. There is not 
a fibre of my heart and soul that this has not fastened 
upon. You knew how I loved her whom we have 
both mourned so long and sincerely. I only ask that 
you will let all of my life to come testify to my devo- 
tion to her whom I seek to make my wife. Again, let 
me remind you how long you have known me, and 
how much less I have always said than I felt. Never 
before have I felt my miserable incommunicableness 
to be such an agony as at this moment, when I cannot 
summon words that might convince you of what your 
peerless daughter is to me ! ” 

To his unutterable amazement, for he felt how poor 
were his pleadings, how slow and difficult his speech, 
she leaned forward, put a hand on his head and kissed 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 275 

him between the eyes. A solemn, loving kiss that 
was a chrism. 

“ May Our Father bless you both ! ” she said, 
simply. “ It is true that in my selfish absorption in 
other things, I never thought of what has happened 
to you. That Salome liked and honored you, I knew, 
and that you sought her society — I fancied as you 
might that of a young sister. You must allow me 
time to readjust my ideas ” — smiling affectionately 
into his radiant face, as he arose and stood before 
her. “ You have had your own place in my heart for 
many years, but I had not hoped to set you there 
beside my children — my Paul and my Salome ! ” 

A peal at the door-bell made them fall apart. At 
the visitor’s entrance, Rex stood at a window looking 
down upon the twinkling lights of the town ; Mrs. 
Phelps had turned to the piano and was dropping 
noiseless fingers on the keys. 

I hed oughter apologize for interception of a 
teeter-teeter ! ” said Mrs. Fitchett, in blustering that 
sounded like impertinence. “ But the fac’ is, I come 
on special business. ’N’ sez I to F’delia — ^Th’ 
straight-forrard course is allers th’ safest to ensue ’n 
mos’ Christyan,’ sez I. ‘ I don’ know, sez 1 1’ Mrs. 
Tom Johnston, ‘whatever Mrs. Phelps’ll think o’ me 
cornin’ in, so unpermediated like, considerin’ she’s 
that ruleable that it’s more’n likely she stan’s on her 
dignity ’bout returnin’ ’n’ countin’ visits ’n’ so-forth. 
But when sech a serious p’int ’s this is concerned,’ sez 
I, — Don’t go, Rex ! ” He was disappearing through 
the casement. “ I’d liefer you’d hear what I’ve got 
to say ’n’ not. I’m quite aware that I’m a*trespassin’ 


276 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


on your lesshure ’n’ other concerns, cornin’ in so un- 
timeously, ’s one might say.” 

“ Will you not be seated, Mrs. Fitchett ? ” asked the 
hostess, setting forward a chair. 

“ Well ! I don’ know 's it’s worth while ! ” taking 
it notwithstanding. “ Ez I were sayin’. I’m a’ honest, 
unassoomin’ lady-member of a’ Orthodox church, one 
as reads her Bible, ’n’ don’ hold with Frenchified 
notions of morality, ’n’ fam’ly flirtations, ’n’ sech 
fash’nable quids ’n’ quirks. ’N’ sez I to Mrs. Tom 
Johnston, ’s afternoon when we see Mrs. Phelps a- 
ridin’ out so sosherble with her own husban’, — ‘ I 
reely feel to think,’ sez I — ‘ that her ’n’ me may neigh- 
bor together after all. ’T stan’s t’ reason as a woman 
couldn’ live all these years with sech an’ angelical 
man ’s Dick Phelps hez been ’s man ’n’ boy, ’n’ me 
a-knowin’ him like a brother this twenty-odd years,’ 
I sez, ‘ ’n’ not be somethin’ domesticated ’n’ scrupu- 
lous ’n’ her mind.’ ’N’ so, sez I to myself, bearin’ that 
Richard hed gone out o’ town on the six ’clock train, 
Mr. Tom Johnston hevin’ seen him at the deep-o 
when he come off the cars, — I’ll make so free ’s jes’ to 
step right in, bein’ a well-wisher, ’n’ her husband’s ole 
frien’, after all’s done ’n’ said, though a personal slight 
acquaintance o’ hers, seein her ’n’ me don’t train giner- 
ally ’n’ the same ban’, ’s one might say,’ sez I to 
F’delia — ‘ ez t’ step over ’n’ put one single soliterry 
question to her.’ ” 

“ Mr. Lupton! ” said Mrs. Phelps’s voice, cool, clear 
and courteous, — “ Excuse me, Mrs. Fitchett ! Mr. 
Lupton, may I trouble you to ring the bell ? We 
can talk more satisfactorily when we can see each 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


277 


Other’s faces. James!” to that functionar)^ bowing 
like an ebony mandarin in the doorway, “ light the 
gas — please ! ” 

“ Ketch me goin’ out o’ my way to be that perlite 
with a nigger ! ” Mrs. Fitchett interpolated at this 
point of her account of the interview to F’delia. 

“ Not for me ! ” she protested, ineffectually, to 
her hostess, “ I hevn’t a minnit to spare. ’Though 
t’-b’-sure, Mrs. Phelps don’ never seem to mind 
lightin’ up the house, all times. Somebody was 
observin’ th’ other day, t’ my house, as how he guessed 
the Phelpses wouldn’ be quite so voluijiinous here ev’ry 
night ’n th’ week, after they’d hed the pleasure o’ 
payin’ a few Freehold gas-bills.” 

Her gaze followed felt-footed James, as he touched 
the bronze taper-holder to two bracket-burners, then 
to the central chandelier. Rex, his hands clasped be- 
*^hind him, stood near the window, apparently attentive 
to what was passing, — in reality listening for sounds 
from the stairway up which Salome had flitted, ten 
minutes ago. Mrs. Phelps occupied a slight reception- 
chair facing her guest, her dark eyes resting in stead- 
fast civility upon the rubicund visage. For all that 
appeared in her mien, the extraordinary jargon she 
had heard might have been the quintessence of sanest 
ratiocination. 

“ You were saying that you had a question to ask 
me,” she prompted, the accompanying inclination of 
the head at once apologetic and suggestive. 

“ Yes ! I never was one to hole t’ th’ mealy- 
mouthed trick o’ beatin’ ’bout th’ bush. I ain’t a mite 
diplermatical, ’n’ I dare say ’s Mrs. Phelps can’t be 


278 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


beat at that trade, if all I hear is true. I’ve none but 
Freehold — an Bible-ways ! They’ve been good enough 
f me-’n’-mine, time outer mind ! What I come to 
ask was this — What do Mrs. Phelps or her fam’ly, or 
household-c’nections, know of a sooperb bookay o’ 
roses, ’n’ lilies, ’n’ tooby-roses, ’n’ gladiolusses, ’n’ 
sech-like rare flowers, I give to Mrs. Rufus Lee, las’ 
night, when she come away from my house, where I’d 
tea-ed her ’n’ her husban’ in comp’ny with some o’ my 
pe’tickler frien’s ? 

“I’m perticklar in desirin’ o’ Mr. Rex Lupton not 
t’ stir out o’ this room ! ” belligerently, as Salome ap- 
peared at the door, and he moved toward her. “ I 
hev my reasons for wishin’ to hev witnes"ses to all 
what transposes in this here scenery. P’raps Mr. 
Hollis Lee’s sister-’n-law may hev persented the said 
bookay, with her love, to Mrs. Phelps’s daughter ? ” 
wheeling upon the individual thus designated. 

Mrs. Phelps took the word: 

“We know nothing whatever of the matter. I can 
answer for my whole family. Our acquaintanceship 
with Mrs. Lee is very slight, and we have never heard 
of the flowers you speak of. I am right, my daugh- 
ter — am I not ? ” 

“ Yes, mamma ! ” 

Salome had not stirred beyond the threshold. Her 
eyes were riveted upon the catechist with a mixture of 
disfavor, bewilderment and amusement that provoked 
a covert smile from Rex. It was ingenuous inspec- 
tion of a phenomenal specimen of the human race. 

“ Then ” — rising so majestically as to upset her 
chair and one other within the compass of her 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


279 


flounces — “ matters is quadrupelly ’n’ thribbly aggra- 
vated ! Mrs. Lee’s ways ain’t Freehold ways nor her 
thoughts ourn ! That’s been the trouble with her 
from Alpheus to Oregon, ’s one might say. But that 
she sh’d accep’ my flowers — the ch’icest prodecks o’ 
my barn ’n’ storehouse, ’s you may say — that I give 
her with the most liberales’ o’ motives, from my own 
supper-table where she’d been feasted on cut-glass ’n’ 
solid silver, ’n’ pampered, ’n’ squandered like a queen 
on her throne, ’s you might say, V on her way from 
my House, with my v’ice still a-achin’ in her years, 
could shy ’em so fur over your iron fence, or, maybe, 
through your gate, ’s to lodge ’em in a evergreen- 
tree half-way up the hill — is goin’ it a leettle too 
strong ’n’ independent for a poor minister’s wife ! 
The Bible sez as how them as preach the gospill must 
expec’ to live by the gospill. Mr. Rufus Lee ’d better 
lay them words to heart ! Unless I’m mistook in my 
kalkerlations of the Old North Hill folks, for th’ firs* 
time sence I’ve been c’nected with it, ’n’ I jined under 
old Dr. Pinner — shell diskiver that the Church ’n’ Sas- 
siety is too conservatory to put up with sech shif’less, 
ungrateful behavior. If Miss S’lomy Phelps ” — trans- 
fixing the girl with bovine eyes, all black pupil and 
red fire — “ sh’d happen to run acrosst Mr. Hollis 
Lee in her unperambulated walks and rides — on an 
accident, you know — she may name to him in a casu- 
alty way, as it were, that pew No. 30 in his brother’s 
church will be adz^^rtised ’n’ th’ '‘Freehold Landmark* 
to-morrer for sale. I hope Mrs. Phelps will excuse 
me for keepin’ her ’n’ Mr. Lupton s’ long from their 
conversation, ’n’ her daughter from her dinner. I c’d 


28 o a gallant fight. 

wish to bid Mrs. ’n’ Miss Phelps, ’n’ Mr. Rex Lupton 
a respective adjew ! ” 

Deep would have been her disgustful mortification 
had she guessed how quickly the splash and ripple 
caused by her visit and rhetoric subsided. The trio 
with difficulty restrained their laughter until the sound 
of the elephantine march over the gravel died away, — 
then gave way to mirth that brimmed and overflowed 
their eyes. 

Mrs. Phelps sobered down with the remark : 

The opera-glass and Fidelia’s visit to the lawn are 
accounted for. Poor Mrs. Lee ! ” 

. “ Do you suppose that awful woman will carry out 

her threat, mamma ? ” 

‘‘ If she should, my dear, we will buy the pew. 
Papa and I agreed upon a change of church-relations, 
this afternoon.” 

And — “ The Old North Hill is to be congratulated 
upon the exchange of parishioners ! ” — from Rex, 
dismissed the theme for one nearer all hearts. 

They went into dinner when James salaamed to his 
mistress in the doorway from which the Vesuvian 
neighbor had finally withdrawn her foot. Rex gave 
his arm to the hostess, and, at her request, took the 
seat opposite hers at table. James waited with im- 
passive visage and the gliding gait on which he prided 
himself, along with hfty other butler-ish accomplish- 
ments. His superiors chatted of impersonal topics 
with polite composure, Rex addressing Salome natu- 
rally and occasionally, as “ Miss Phelps,” .she not once 
naming him, but replying without diffidence. A fourth 
person, however well acquainted with them, would not 


A GALLANl^ FIGHT. 


281 


have suspected the tumultuous flow of emotion that 
underran the placid surface. So mighty is the sway 
of breeding, so beneficent in repressive and temper- 
ing power is the unwritten code of conventionality. 

It was too cool to have coffee on the piazza, the 
wind having risen since nightfall, and they repaired 
to the library on quitting the dining-room. 

“ ‘ Summer is going ! Summer is gone ! ' ” quoted 
Salome. “ We should be thankful that it has lingered 
so long with us. That reminds me, mamma, that we 
heard that ‘ wondrous singer,’ the thrush, to-day, in a 
romantic little dingle, a mile or so out of town. 
Papa said, yesterday, he had never heard him sing so 
late in the year before.” 

‘‘ Yes, love ! We heard them, too, this afternoon. 
It is very late for the shy, sweet things ! ” 

The full, pleasant voice was steadier than her 
daughter’s. There was an odd little break, once in a 
while, in the girl’s bright chat, that, with the sweet 
fluttering laugh we have noted, were in evidence of 
happiness too novel and wonderful to be borne with 
perfect equanimity. Mrs. Phelps made tea and 
Vienna coffee, poured out a cup of one for herself, of 
the other for Rex. Salome drank neither. Her 
unsullied complexion and clear eyes bespoke sound 
digestion and nerves. It suited Rex’s somewhat 
fastidious ideas that happy excitement did not make 
herfidgetty — that while the others sipped the evening 
beverage, she sat quite still on her low chair, with no 
restless stir of hands or feet. With proprietary pride, 
he noted her simple, tasteful gown, and that the half- 
blow red roses she liked to wear ceased to flaunt 


282 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


after she put them in her belt, becoming, instead, 
modest foils to her brunette comeliness. Such girls 
grow into noble women. At twenty-nine, a man, 
however distractedly in love he may be, appreciates 
the truth that October has as many days in it as 
May, and as sure a place in the minuet of months. 

By-and-by, the mother went away and left them 
alone, closing the door after her. The little action 
had significance. It shut them in together, and put 
the solid panels between her and the child she loved 
with a perfectness of passion seldom known to women 
who are so blessed as to be wedded to paragon 
husbands — like Richard Phelps. Every drop of blood 
left her face, as the bolt clicked into place. She 
pressed her hand hard to her bosom, and waited a 
moment, with bent head and knotted forehead, until 
what we name after the French — having no apt 
phrase of our own for it — serre7nent du coeur "' — 
relaxed somewhat. She passed, then, head erect, 
form straight as a lance, up the stairway, along the 
hall, on to the south room. 

The moon was just rising. A broad bar of light, 
amberine in lustre and tint, lay across the floor to the 
white bed. She had not slept in it last night, but 
had lain awake from midnight until sunrise on the 
sofa at the other side of the room. 

The night that had been Gethsemane and Calvary 
to a soul sorrowful beyond the bitterness of death ! 

She went, now, directly to the bed, and knelt beside 
it, remaining thus for many minutes, moveless as the 
still, lovely form that had last rested there. The 
wind was shut out by the closed sashes ; the moon- 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


283 


bar whitened and broadened. The place was sound- 
less and awful as a tomb ; the only pulse in the air 
was from her breath ; the library was too far away 
for her to hear the hum of lovers’ voices ; her husband 
was a hundred miles distant in one direction, her son 
as many in another. 

Yet, to her apprehension, a presence, viewless, but 
real, waited upon the conclusion of the prayer that 
committed her darling’s future to another’s keeping — 
a prayer wherein petition for mercy, pardon and pa- 
tience unto the end, crowded upon humble acknowledg- 
ment of blessings unnumbered and unmerited. She 
had learned, with charity for others, to be very frank 
with herself. » 

In rising, she turned, as if to face the Presence — 
her look level and calm : 

“ I think you would have it so ! ” she said, audibly — 
a distinct, resonant utterance that thrilled startlingly 
through the hushed chamber. “ For six years, you 
have not left me, sleeping or waking. You see that 
this is God’s will — not mine, not yours ! In His 
name, go in peace ! ” 

She had strong will and firm nerves. Churchly exor- 
cism was never more deliberately spoken. The haunt- 
ing Thing wrought conviction, not dread, although, 
to-night, it wore, to spiritual vision, the exact linea- 
ments of her lost friend, the unearthly beauty shed 
upon these as the boy-lover had last beheld them, the 
nameless radiance that was “ something like the 
reflection of a sunlit wing.” 

Unlocking a table-drawer, when she had lighted 
the gas, Mrs. Phelps took out a thick, sealed 


284 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


envelope. The inscription almost covered one side 
of it : 

“ Should my husband outlive me^ I entreat him to 
read and then bur7i the contents of this packet. Should 
the task falL to any other executor^ I enjoin that the 
envelope and enclosures be burned unopened. 

‘ ‘ Madeli ne Phelps. ’ ’ 

She carried it over to the hearth, lighted one 
corner, and holding it, watched the tindery fragments 
writhe loose from the blazing mass and drop upon 
the marble. When all had fallen, she swept them up, 
and opening the window, threw them out. 

She was sitting, book in hand, under the reading 
lamp in her boudoir, when Salorpe tapped at the 
door : 

“ Rex would like to say ‘ good-night ’ to you, 
mamma.” Meeting the loveful glance, she cast 
herself into her mother’s arms, crying out in a tran- 
sport of grateful affection : “ Motherlie ! Motherlie ! 
Rex says truly that is the one and only name for 
you ! How good you are ! Oh ! how good you are 
to us ! ” 

Already and forevermore us ! ” The mysterious 
duality of life, which is eternal and truest unity, had 
begun for them. If the mother-heart shrank, the 
smile masked the tremor: 

Rex met the two in the hall as they came down. 
The spring in his step, the glad light in eye and on 
lip, made him years younger and many degrees 
handsomer than when he had appeared in the draw- 
ing-room that evening as Salome’s spokesman. 

“ Forgive me for calling you down,” he said, taking 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


285 


both her hands. “ I could not go without thanking 
you again for your great kindness — your infinite 
generosity.” 

Scanning her face wistfully, and with feeling in the 
tone he would have made playful, he added : “ Have 
I got back my very own friend ? Is the frosty film 
dissipated ? Will it never chill me again ? I couldn’t 
complain — I had no right — and you treated me better 
than I deserved, but the change cost me many 
unhappy hours.” 

“ The love — and the trust in you — were always 
there, dear boy, whatever my manner may have been. 
One word of practical matters ! I have been thinking 
all this affair over, and have concluded that it will 
be best to keep it to our three selves until my hus- 
band’s return. There can be no positive engagement 
without his — knowledge.” She seemed to substitute 
the word when on the point of uttering another. 
“ Unless you, Rex, think it due to Mrs. Lupton to take 
her into confidence ? ” 

“ By no means ! Isabel is a reasonable woman. 
You are entirely right. I might write to Mr. 
Phelps ! ” 

“ Do not ! ” quickly. “ Let me prepare the way 
for you, when he comes home. I forewarn you that 
he will not be so easily won over as I was. Fathers 
are proverbially intractable, you know, in such cir- 
cumstances.” 

Salome glanced up, apprehensively. 

“ Do you mean, mamma, that we have any reason 
to be afraid of his decision ? ” 

Rex answered for Mrs. Phelps. They were still 


286 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


grouped in the hall, and he had taken his hat, but 
delayed leave-taking, as the manner of engaged men 
is. The chandelier overhead showed a graver expres- 
sion than he had worn a minute before. 

“ Not afraid, certainly, but not confident. I have 
explained to Salome, motherlie ! ” the happy light 
returning with the tentative word, ‘‘ the surprise that 
befell me with the summing-up of last year’s profits. 
I knew we were doing better than ever before sinceT 
took charge of the business, but hardly dared hope 
that the result would justfy me in thinking of a home 
of my own within another twelvemonth. When I 
bore her off last night — ivas it only twenty-four hours 
ago ? — to walk among the roses, I was fairly daft with 
the delight of the discovery. But I am not a rich 
man yet. I may never be. Mr. Phelps has a right 
to look higher than a mill-owner who has so little of 
his own that the prospect of a moderate income turns 
his head. I was not surprised that the convolvulus 
got up long before day to stare at me. It was more 
like a miracle that the rest of the morning-glories 
slept through it all ! ” 

Such happy nonsense as it was to the three ! When 
they had laughed him away, with another sprig of 
honeysuckle in his button-hole, begged from and 
affixed by Salome, while her mother stepped back to 
caution James to shut up the house carefully in his 
master’s absence, the two ladies strolled the length of 
the portico many times before they could leave the 
outer scene. The sweet dampness of the air freighted 
with honeysuckle odors, the glimmer of the newly- 
washed sward in the moonbeams, the lights and 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 287 

shadows of the sleeping town, were so many lures to 
the possible imprudence. 

“ Motherlie ! ” the tender girl-voice at length stole 
upon the charmed stillness. “You will not be angry 
if I tell you something ? ” 

“You never anger me, love. To-night you can- 
not ! “ 

“We, Rex and I, talked this evening of his first 
love, your friend ! ” 

The muscles of the arm encircling her stiffened, 
but there was no other signal of emotion ; the answer- 
ing tone was even and gentle. 

“ That was well and inevitable, at least with a man 
like Rex Lupton. I should have been surprised had 
he remained silent on the subject." 

“ He loved her very fondly, mamma. I think all 
the more of him for that. I have always thought her 
fate the saddest I ever knew of. To-night I cannot 
be sorry enough for her. Rex reverences her memory 
as he does his mother’s. He says the only comfort 
he has had in all these years of mourning was in a 
sort of blind faith that his pretty mother who died 
when he was a little boy, had sought out in heaven 
the woman who loved him so truly here, and that they 
were together. You may think it singular that I am 
not jealous of his beautiful early betrothed, mamma, 
but I cannot be. She loved and lost him, poor girl ! 
and I love — and — have — him!'' 

They made a slow turn in silence, and yet another 
before Salome halted at the almost circular rift in the 
vine-curtain, and thrust her spirited young head 
through the opening. 


288 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


When I do this I can see the light in his windows. 
Sitting on the piazza, at a certain angle from the 
loop-hole, I have watched for him, night after night, 
when nobody suspected, not daring to ask myself 
why I did it. I did not know, nor that he cared for 
me until this morning when he coaxed me to give 
him a bit of honeysuckle, and I saw something in his 
eyes that frightened me ! Motherlie, will you answer 
me one question ?” 

“ As many as you choose to ask, dear child.” 

“ Why, do you suppose, he began to like me ? 
Don’t think me vain, but do I resemble her in any 
respect ? ” 

“ God forbid ! ” 

‘‘ Mamma ! what did you say ? 

That you are yourself., my darling, and I would 
not have you changed in one trait or feature. Further- 
more, that Rex will not be consoled, if you take cold 
in this treacherous climate, by the intelligence that 
you got it while talking of him ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


O N the fourth day after the betrothal among the 
cathedral pines, Mrs. Lupton invited Mrs. and 
Miss Phelps to meet the Lees at a quiet family dinner, 
such as sensibly-mitigated woe might indulge in with- 
out violence to the proprieties. 

“ I invite the clerical combination from a mixture 
of politic and benevolent motives,” she explained, 
airily, to her step-son. “ The Lees are wofully out of 
place in church and community — the wife, especially. 
She must continually be in a state of semi-asphyxia, 
and a breath of native air would revive her. Loving 
my neighbor as myself, I do my best to give it to 
her.” 

la bon?ie heure!'' responded the diverted lis- 
tener, as she showed no disposition to proceed.” So 
much for benevolence ! But where does policy come 
in — may I inquire ? ” 

A heap of flowers was on the table, beside which 
she stood, arranging them in various receptacles — her 
daily task, as it w^s Salome’s. Their different viays 
of doing the same thing were interesting and charac- 
teristic. At the Phelps house, roses were clustered 
in great bowls ; lilies, among their own leaves in 
tall jars, with no other flowers, and beds of smaller 
blossoms were made in damp moss laid on shallow 
dishes. Most of Mrs. Lupton’s vases were small, and 
held only a flower or two. A Dresden Cupid carried 
289 


290 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


a rosebud and geranium leaf in his quiver ; a slender, 
long-necked glass held a stem of tuberoses ; an old 
blue china vase — an heirloom — a single Japan lily, 
clear pink, freckled with fire. 

Her head was turned slightly toward the left shoul- 
der, her mouth was pursed meditatively ; her fingers 
coaxed stiff stems into grace ; fondled pliant — she 
appeared to forget all else in her work. Her eye- 
brows perked perplexedly before she replied : 

! what ? Oh ! my diplomacy ! The Phelpses 
have taken up the Lees, you know. ‘Very much 
so 1 ’ as Freeholders say. There is a wheel within a 
wheel in this partnership scheme of ‘ Phelps and 
Lee.’ One band runs over both. I might have 
thought — had I troubled myself to form independent 
opinions of my friend’s concerns — that they might 
look higher, or, at least, longer, for a sposo for a 
girl who has been half-over the globe and will inherit 
half of a handsome fortune. A parsonage-bred 
country lawyer would hardly seem to ‘ fill the bill.’ 
But, to give you a French comfit in exchange for 
yours — ce tiest pas 7non affaire ! My cue is to keep 
on amicable terms with my nearest and most desirable 
of neighborhood. I like the Phelpses — one and all — 
the father least of them, perhaps, because he needs 
other people’s liking so little. They do more than 
the rest of Freehold combined to reconcile me to life 
in a pill-box — with the top on 1 Monsieur, if not 
Madame, has decreed that his daughter shall become 
Mrs. Hollis Lee who is brother to Rev. Rufus Lee, 
and brother-in-law to Mrs. Rufus. Ergo^ I cotton to 
the Lees.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


291 


Rex’s face was absolutely impassive. 

“What commissions have you for me this morning ? 
Can I do anything down-town to further your philan- 
thropic diplomatic designs ? ” 

Having received the brief memorandum he sub- 
joined : “ As I must come up in good season for 
dinner, do not expect me home to luncheon.” 

The step-mother smiled over her flowers several 
times when he had gone — more widely than she al- 
lowed herself to do in others’ sight — conscious, as 
she could not but be, if she had ever executed the 
grimace before a mirror, that her mouth was feline 
when thus expanded, the corners running back too 
far and too deeply into her cheeks. She made a dis- 
passionate study of all her points, good and bad. 

The same wide smile straightened her lips when 
word was brought to her, at ten o’clock, that “ Miss 
Phelps would like to speak with her for a few min- 
utes.” 

One of the unpopular habits common to Mrs. 
Phelps and Mrs. Lee — both “ foreigners” — was that 
they never encouraged people to “ run in,” or being 
“ in,” to run up or down, as the hostess chanced to 
be in chambers or basement. They entered nobody’s 
door, however hospitably it might yawn an invitation 
to unceremoniousness, without ringing the bell, and 
when admitted, turned into parlors or reception-room 
and sent up their name in decorous form. 

Salome had tripped across the lawn without mantle 
or card-case, but she requested — not forced — an inter- 
view. 

“ Maggie ! ” said the mistress with the affable 


292 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


dignity she always used toward her dependants, “ I 
wish you would take these books to Mr. Gerald’s 
room, and bring me one with a red back and green 
sides from the left-hand corner of the top shelf of his 
book-case. ‘ The Reader’s Handbook ’ is the name 
on the back. The left-hand corner, Maggie ! I think 
Miss Phelps has called for the book. Be quick, 
please ! and after you have found it, run down and 
ask her if she will be good enough to step upstairs.” 

At least three minutes elapsed before the crest- 
fallen maid reappeared. 

“ I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t find the book you 
mintion, nor none like it, at all, at all ! ” 

Her mistress was in the hall, near the open door of 
her room, apparently impatient of her tardiness. 

‘‘No? well, never mind! I will explain to Miss 
Phelps. Go, now, and ask her to come up. You 
need not show her the way. Go back to your work.” 

Evidently her work lay in a variety of places that day. 
She called to Salome from another open door which 
the girl was passing without turning her head. Since 
Maggie saw her, Mrs. Lupton had donned a muslin 
sweeping-cap, and laid hold of a duster. 

“ Excuse me for troubling you to climb the stairs, 
but I am in working costume, as you see,” she said, 
cordially. “ This chamber is wanted for the men’s 
dressing-room to-night, and Rex asked me to put 
some things out of the way before they invade his 
premises. Sit down there ! ” wheeling around a 
chair. “ You wont mind if I go on with the little left 
for me to do ? ” 

“ Certainly not ! ” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 293 

She panted slightly, her color fluctuating as she 
breathed. 

While she spoke, she looked directly at her com- 
panion with large, timid eyes, like those of a hare 
that espies an intruder, while knowing itself to be un- 
seen. 

“ It is I who should apologize for my unseasonable 
call. I want you to be perfectly sincere in answering 
the question I came to ask. My friend, Anna Marcy, 
of whom you have heard me speak, arrived at Mr. 
Lee’s last night. Mrs. Lee is her cousin. Will it be 
entirely convenient and agreeable to you to ask her 
here this evening ? I shall call there this forenoon, 
and will take a message to that effect, or make her 
comprehend why she is not invited, should it be in- 
compatible with your arrangements to add another to 
your company. Mamma thought it hardly probable 
that you could make room for her at this late hour. 
A dinner-party is such an inexorable “ institution ! ” 

Her cheeks were cooling, but her gaze was still 
direct. She glanced at nothing. 

“ Maiden alarms ! ” thought the even-pulsed ob- 
server. “ I have taken her by surprise.” 

“ The very thing I have been trying to compass all 
the morning ! ” she cried, in frank delight, that was 
nothing short of genius. “ Gerald — yes ! — I know 
I spoil the monkey — has taken a notion that he 
should be allowed a seat at the table this evening. 
Here was my plan : Dr. Williams, as a charming old 
man, and your grandfather’s friend, is to take your 
mother in to dinner ; Mr. Clayton, Miss Williams. 
He admires her inordinately ! Hollis Lee will take 


294 A GALLANT FIGHT. 

you ; Rex, Mrs. Lee ; and Mr. Rufus Lee, myself, as 
a matter of course. So, I informed my son and heir 
that his pert presence would destroy the equilibrium 
of my board, and he sulked outrageously. He thinks 
Miss Marcy ‘ no end of fun,’ and if she will over- 
look his tender years and bumptiousness, I don’t see 
how we could get on without her. I will scribble off 
a note to welcome her as a special Providence to 
the weak-minded mother of a recalcitrant urchin, and 
say how charmed I shall be to see her on her own 
account and on yours. Wait one minute — please ! ” 

She ran out of the room and was back in an in- 
stant, portfolio in hand ; drew up a chair to Rex’s 
desk, and fell to work upon a sheet with the then 
fashionable (and always abominable) nibbled edges. 
Her hand ambled over the roughened surface of the 
Irish linen, leaving a trail of flowing, dashing char- 
acters after it. As she wrote, she smiled indulgence 
of Gerald’s whim, and hospitality, boundless and free, 
to Miss Marcy. 

Salome broke the bonds of her foolish bashfulness 
and looked about her with an effort at unconcern. 
Mrs. Lupton lodged the son of his father in style 
befitting the heir apparent. Hangings, walls, carpet, 
and furniture were in excellent taste and of the best 
quality. This much and no more had his betrothed 
seen when her attention was attracted to an easel set 
exactly in the line of her observation. It was of 
ebony, richly carved, and supported a frame made 
after the pattern of what are known as “ tabernacles ” 
— with hinged leaves parting in the middle and fas- 
tening with a lock. They were open, now, revealing 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


295 


a life-size portrait. Salome recognized it at once. 
The painting was exquisite, Rex having had a photo- 
graph copied by the most distinguished portrait- 
artist in New York. The likeness was remarkable 
for fidelity. The gown of dark-blue velvet, trimmed 
with silver-fox fur, enhanced the dazzling fairness of 
the wearer’s skin, and brought out the golden sheen 
of her hair. The bow of the short upper lip, the 
slight pout of the lower, the noble turn of chin and 
cheek, the straight, Grecian nose, the low arch of 
the brows, the liquid brightness of the eyes, with the 
never-absent hint of sadness darkening their depths 
— the whole fine, refined, imperial face — were what 
Salome had carried in her memory of almost a third 
part of her young life. The gaze of the shining eyes 
seemed to spring out upon hers in meeting ; to claim 
insistently that she should look, and remember, and 
ponder. 

“ You are a child ! ” they said, with the fine disdain 
of the curving mouth. “ A thing to chase the sad- 
ness of a world-beaten man for a few hours. Little 
better than a doll — a baby ! Behold the woman — 
magnificent in beauty and grace and intellect — whom 
Rex Lupton loved ! the woman who loved him ! ” 

Red glints were in .Mrs. Lupton’s hazel orbs as, 
glancing up from the written page, she noted the 
attitude of the subject under vivisection. Salome’s 
face was in profile, but the contour had been touched 
with a sharp chisel since her kind neighbor began 
her note. Piteous lines depressed the mobile mouth ; 
her entire being drooped under the sad, proud 
eyes. 


296 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


“'You are admiring that painting ! ” The lady said 
it so smoothly and easily that the other did not start. 
“ As a work of art, it is admirable. Rex must have 
paid a ruinous sum for it — ” and she named the 
artist. “ The likeness is marvellous. You remember 
her, of course ? ” 

“ Perfectly ! The girl mastered a contraction of 
the throat before she uttered the word in her usual 
voice. “ It is, as you say, a wonderful likeness.” 

“ I had not noticed that the doors were open,” 
continued Mrs. Lupton, pressing the blotter upon the 
wet lines. “ It seldom happens that it is left un- 
locked. Rex treasures it so jealously that I doubt if 
one of the children has ever seen it. I heard him 
walking the floor last night, and guessed at the cause 
of his disquiet. He must have been sadly distraught, 
to leave his choicest possession exposed to others’ 
eyes. He confessed to me once that he spent many 
hours of each night in gazing at his lost love, 
although he knew he must pay the penalty in sleep- 
lessness afterward. He idolized her — poor girl ! and 
the more wildly that she was his superior in knowl- 
edge of the world, in social accomplishments — in every 
external advantage that a beautiful, gifted woman 
could have over a shy, almost uncouth boy. She read 
him more truly than we. Like Michael Angelo, she 
saw the angel in cold marble. Heigho ! Regrets 
are useless — but what a man she might have made of 
him ! ‘I lost my one opportunity in life with her ! ’ 
he said to me, last Sunday week, when he came in 
from the walk to her grave he takes in all weathers 
on Sunday afternoon. Do you get a good light on 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 297 

the face from your point of view ? ” gently flicking 
dust from the frame with her soft cloth. 

“ Excellent — thank you ! ” 

“ I must put it out of sight before evening. Did 
you know that he would not have her engagement 
ring taken from her finger ? It was buried with her. 
‘ I am married to her with it for time and for eter- 
nity/ he said to his father, who remonstrated against 
the folly. Ah, there is a loyal heart, if ever there 
was one. Yet, I wish he would marry. I hope, 
sometimes, that he may yet be brought to consider 
that his duty to his family demands this sacrifice of 
romantic memories, and when you know Rex Lupton 
well, you will comprehend that duty is his, only rule 
of faith and practice. 

“ I am afraid all this un-step-motherly effusiveness 
bores you. It could hardly be otherwise. Rex is one 
of my pet weaknesses. He is as good as gold and 
true as steel. It is not strange that I should covet 
for him what he will not seek for himself — a wife and 
home of his own. 

“Don’t go! At least, give me a hint as to my 
floral decorations. They are tame and tasteless, when 
compared with yours. What can one expect of an 
elderly woman with no grown daughters, and no hope 
of a daughter-in-law to educate her in the minor ele- 
gancies ? ” 

Salome praised everything with feverish volubility ; 
her cheeks were like velvet rose-leaves ; her voice was 
a little strained, but bell-like in speech and laugh. 
When she had got herself away, and trod up the slope 
with the free, erect carriage of youth and strength, the 


298 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


red hazel eyes followed her in genuine admiration the 
while the feline smile was none the less coldly cruel. 

“ Thoroughbred ! ” she said, inwardly ; “ but mili- 
tary necessity knows no higher law than itself ! ” 

She returned to Rex’s chamber ; shut the taberna- 
cle-leaves, locked them and deposited the key in the 
desk drawer from which she had taken it while Mag- 
gie was hunting in vain frenzy for “ The Reader’s 
Handbook.” 

The gentlemen invited to partake of her gracious 
cheer that evening laid off their hats and dusted their 
boots in a chamber on the other side of the hall. The 
unconscious step-son was left in undisturbed posses- 
sion of his quarters until it was time to go down to re- 
ceive the guests. 

The fair relict was in deep waters at this date, but 
kept her head well. Her nervous system was excep- 
tional in equipoise, as we have seen, and she had re- 
duced economy of forces to a science. 

While she did not scruple to lie artistically and 
effectively to secure an end that justified the stretch 
of conscience, she never wasted clever fabrications, and 
when truth would serve the purpose as well as false- 
hood, gave it the preference, as less dangerous to handle. 
Her hu.sband had detected her in lies many times, and 
admired the dexterity with which she averted the con- 
sequences of her indiscretion. A long series of auda- 
cious business enterprises had taught him the value of 
skilful prevarication. He loved the “ best of women ” 
not one whit the less for her tact and address in this 
style of composition, and respected her talents the 
more. His son was built of such different stuff that 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


299 


the wise step-parent had never let him doubt her hon- 
esty. She had even told him needless, and to her 
inconvenient, truths on divers occasions. His wits 
being duller than his father’s, there would have seemed 
to be no expediency in taking such pains to keep on 
his blind side, but Mrs. Lupton would never have been 
lavish with ammunition until she saw the scaling lad- 
ders brought to the front against her beseiged city. 

From which figure the astute reader may divine 
that she had calculated danger and defences shrewdly 
in the morning interview, and not told one fib too 
many. What she had seen through the gap in the 
roadside bank had taken her by surprise ; a fact that 
wrought her up to anger with herself, and well- 
grounded alarm for the perpetuity of her best-laid 
plans. She did full justice to Rex’s steadfastness of 
heart and will. As with most slow, determined na- 
tures, the pertinacity of his affections was laid in dog- 
gedness, and hardened, not mellowed by time. That 
the retrospective habit which had reversed the natural 
direction of the lights and shadows of a young man’s 
life should have been exchanged, in so short a time, 
for fervent longings and eager anticipations more in 
consonance with his sex and age, was to her dazed 
apprehension incredible even now. To one thing she 
was fully awake. Rex’s marriage would materially 
damage the prospects of herself and children, relegate 
her to a dowager’s position, and, possibly, involve her 
removal to a dower-house — one of the numerous “ gen- 
teel family residences ” erected by her late consort. 
She had counted upon the reversion of Rex’s share of 
the fine estate to his half-brothers and sisters, and 



300 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


been over-confident of her ability to make his con- 
firmed bachelorhood perpetual. 

A sensitive woman would have expended cellular 
tissue in wounded feeling that he should basely repay 
her tireless endeavor to make him so comfortable 
in celibacy as never to feel the lack of wife and home. 
Rating other people by herself, she ignored the injury. 
Had she been in his place, she would have done Avhat 
was for her own advantage. He might be misled, and 
to his hurt ; but not a line in the course she chalked 
out for herself was deflected by sympathy or consid- 
eration for him. 

A less wily diplomatist would have cautioned 
Salome to secrecy on the subject of the portrait and 
her divulgation of Rex’s confidences. Counting 
boldly upon the girl’s delicacy and pride, she ran no 
risk of exciting doubts as to her statements and the 
motive for making them. Nobody understood bet- 
ter than she that an overdose of poison would react 
to nullify itself. 

She set her human chessmen in order on the board 
while arraying herself in mourning silk and fleecy 
tulle for the evening game. Rufus Lee, Mrs. Lee 
and Miss Marcy were pawns. The superior pieces 
were herself, first ; next, with fine instinct, she ranked 
Mrs. Phelps. Hollis Lee was third in impor- 
tance. The game could not be played without him. 
Then Salome, lastly Rex. Should she lose beyond 
repair, by means of strategy or reprisal, she had 
in reserve a play of another and deadlier sort, the 
parallel to which was never furnished by Hoyle or 
Murphy. Two figures would fight it out on the same 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


301 


board. She had considered cost and strength, and 
believed she knew also who would be the winner. 

Gerald was strutting through the parlors when she 
entered them. I will not insult the intelligence of the 
reader who has studied the mother thus far with me by 
remarking that the boy had never dreamed of joining 
the dinner company until, on his return from school 
that noon, the affectionate parent informed him of the 
addition to the party in the shape of Miss Marcy, and 
her plan that he should be her attendant. 

The youth patronizingly took the matter into con- 
sideration. 

“ She’s awfully fat ! ” he concluded. The fellows 
would chaff me no end if they were to hear of it. 
But I can hold my tongue, and it will be a jolly ‘feed,’ 
Yes ! I’ll offer myself up a sacrifice to make things 
even all around ! ” 

He furthermore exacted as “boot,” a white satin 
cravat and a pair of patent leather “ Oxford ties,” the 
splendor of which caught his brother’s eye when he 
ran lightly down the stairs, very elegant in irreproach- 
able evening costume, so handsome and high-bred 
looking that Gerald greeted him with : 

“ Hello, Rex ! you’re stunninger than common, even 
for you. How do you do it, old fellow } ” 

“ Oh, I began with satin chokers and glossy boots,” 
retorted the elder, encouragingly. “ Perseverance 
and a good opinion of one’s self will carry you on to 
perfection. Isabel ! is our party to be graced by 
the infant phenomenon ? That wasn’t on the bill, 
was it ? ” 

“ Gerald dines with us to accommodate me,” an- 


302 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


swered she, imperturbably good-humored, and pro- 
ceeded to describe the dilemma. 

Rex’s countenance changed at the recital ; he 
dropped his bantering tone. 

“ Shake hands, my boy ! ” he said to the juvenile 
gallant. “ You are more of a gentleman than your 
brother was when he tried to tease you for throwing 
yourself into the breach. I honor your desire to 
please your mother, and be courteous to Miss 
Marcy.” 

His genial mood for several days past had not es- 
caped his step-mother’s attention, nor did the unwonted 
restlessness that led him first to one window, then to 
the other, under no pretext at all, and lastly to a linger- 
ing saunter through rooms and hall. Nothing more 
effectually disgusts a person who has never been in 
love than the survey of the symptoms of the malady 
as exhibited by another. Mrs. Lupton had never 
liked her husband’s son less than during the fifteen 
minutes of waiting that preceded the arrival of the 
company. 

He showed himself a graceful host, seconding the 
welcome of the chdtelaine with spontaneous ease, for 
which the Lees were not prepared. In the interval 
before the announcement of dinner, he passed from 
one to another with apt word and ready smile, neglect- 
ing none, yet never losing a motion of the white-robed 
figure that, turned partly away from him, hearkened 
with dangerous intentness to something Hollis Lee 
was telling her. Ere long a certain change in the air 
affected Rex unpleasantly. The electrical currents 
were reversed ; his heart called vainly for the silent 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


303 


response that had not before failed him when they 
were in the same room, since the hour in which they 
had clasped hands across the saddle-bow, and the pine- 
boughs whispered the news to one another high 
overhead. 

At table, Salome sat half way up the table, Rufus 
Lee on one side, Hollis on the other, — a fortuitous cir- 
cumstance, for Isabel was too well-bred to offer object- 
lessons to her guests. Anna Marcy’s arrival had 
disjointed her original design. Salome’s bloom 
deepened as the repast went on. She talked much 
with the two nearest her, Hollis basking so palpably 
in her presence that Rex inly “ confounded his im- 
pudence,” while Rufus’s benignant smile had a touch 
of patriarchal proprietorship yet harder to tolerate. 
As a rule, Isabel’s entertainments had the unqualified 
approval of her sedate step-son. Business methods 
and innate chivalry had made his taste in these things 
somewhat formal. A violation of conventional usage 
was, to his apprehension, license, and license was an 
offence. But this dinner was needlessly long, and the 
company ill-assorted. 

“ The glacial area extended just a quarter of the 
way up the table on both sides,” wrote Anna Marcy 
to her mother, of the affair. “ Ethel was frozen stiff. 
I, thanks to adipose tissue, merely benumbed. Ger- 
ald’s torpor affected his tongue, but not his jaws. 
Miss Williams shivered occasionally, but the ardor of 
her escort brought her off safely without a positive 
ague. Beyond her, Mrs. Phelps on one side, Salome — 
the incarnation of sunshine — on the other, made 
summer weather.” 


304 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ Another Lee. as I live ! ” ejaculated the glacier, 
mentally, as the first object he beheld when the gentle- 
men rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, was 
Salome in close conversation with Hollis’s sister-in- 
law. “ This is becoming unbearable ! ” 

He did not modify the adjective when Hollis marched 
straight over to the pair and became a third in the 
confabulation. The young fellow was handsome to- 
night, impertinently good-looking — considering ! ” 
the malcontent put it, grinding his teeth upon the final 
word. The senseless babble in the rooms was loud 
enough without any contribution from himself. He 
withdrew to the adjoining library with Dr. Williams, 
who wanted to consult a rare work purchased by the 
elder Reginald shortly before his death. While they 
were turning it over, a skilful prelude told that 
Salome’s fingers were on the key-board. 

“ A masterly touch ! ” said the pundit, pricking up 
his ears. “ Don’t let me detain you ! ” 

“ Thank you ! One can hear as well here.” 

He might have added, “ and see ! ” Salome played 
prelude and accompaniment for Hollis, as he sang 
the never-out-of-date “ Three Fishers.” His voice 
was a melodious baritone, his style was good, and the 
uncritical audience listened with pleasure to this and 
“ O, Happy Day ! ” that answered the encore. 

Rex strayed back into the drawing-room in time to 
catch the drift of the discussion over the third ballad, 
which was named by Mrs. Lupton. 

“ What is it that Miss Phelps does not think she 
can play ? ” queried Rex of Anna Marcy, in a low 
tone. 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 305 

Salome’s visible reluctance surprised him, aware as 
he was of her musical proficiency. 

Anna’s eyes twinkled mischievously. 

‘‘ Nothing ! if you want to put it in that way ! She 
doesn’t wafit to accompany Hollis in ‘ When the Flow- 
ing Tide Comes In.’ ” 

Mrs. Lupton overheard the words. 

“ Which I affirm solemnly I heard her singing like 
an angel not a week ago, one moonlight night, as I 
sat on my porch,” she protested. I haven’t had it 
out of my head since.” 

“ Perhaps it was I whom you overheard ? ” said 
Mrs. Phelps, coming forward, laughingly, and as her 
daughter arose with alacrity, taking her place on the 
piano-stool. “ It is one of my songs, Mr. Lee ! I will 
accompany you with pleasure.” 

The proposal was made with such frank cordiality 
that he could do no less than accept it gratefully. Rex 
offered his arm to Salome, as she glanced around for 
a seat, and Ted her' to a distant sofa, standing silently 
behind her while the song — their song — was sung. 
At the close he bent nearer to her ear : “ Thank you 
for not playing it ! ” 

The swift, upward glance into which she was sur- 
prised showed him a glaze of unshed tears. 

“ What is it, darling ? ” he leaned over again to say. 
And, trying to speak playfully, Am I in disgrace 
to-night, that you have not vouchsafed me a word 
or look ? Do you know that I am furiously jealous 
of the fellow who is trying to sing himself into your 
favor ? ” 

“ You have no cause to be ! ” She said it in a sort 


3o6 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


of sad composure, but still looked across the room, 
and not at him. “ The poor boy is in sad trouble, and 
I have been trying to cheer him up. I will tell you 
all about it, some time. 

However her heart might ache she was superior 
to the temptation that would have goaded a meaner 
spirit into retaliation. The candid, upright nature was 
revealed in the simple declaration — “ You have no 
cause to be ! " 

Mrs. Lupton intercepted the lover’s answer, as she 
swam over to them radiantly persuasive. 

“ My sweet child ! you won’t refuse me two favors 
in one night ? won’t let Mr. Lee — what a charming 
vocalist he is ! — outdo you in complaisance ? I want 
you to sing my second-best favorite, the loveliest 
thing Sullivan ever did, and under the absurdest 
name, ‘ Sweethearts.’ No ! Mr. Hollis Lee ! it is 
not a comic song ! On the contrary, I shall have no 
respect for you if it does not break your heart. It 
always breaks mine into macadamized powder. Come, 
Salome ! be merciful and repeat the operation ! ” 

Rex joined in the general laugh as he conducted 
his silent betrothed to the piano, but he was secret- 
ly disquieted by her smileless acquiescence in the 
hostess’s behest. 

We all know the ballad she rendered with matchless 
pathos. The air, little more than a recitative, which 
tells of the exchange of flowers at the parting of the 
declared lover and the as yet unbetrothed maiden. 
How she dallied with the gift ; feigned to throw it 
away, yet treasured it all her life ; how he swore to 
keep his, and cast it aside, “before the petals fell 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


307 


the abrupt breaking in upon monotony of music 
and story of a wild, plaintive measure that swings 
in ear and heart for days — 

“ O, love for a year, a week, a day ! 

But alas ! for the love that loves alway ! ** 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps says in her inimitable way 
of seeming to remind us of what is patent to every- 
body — only we never happened to say it (and never 
would !) 

“ There is a vague monotony in the process of 
wearing pleasure. Happy people are very much 
alike. In the great republic of joy, we find tremen- 
dous and humiliating levels. When we lift our heads 
to bear the great crown of pain, all the ‘ points ’ of 
the soul begin to make themselves manifest at once.” 

Mrs. Lupton’s choice of her second-best favorite 
was clever play, vdth no more feeling in the move 
than if the sentient heart under her taper finger were 
made of dead ivory. The pose of the songstress, as 
she left the instrument, was queenly. She recognized 
pain, by now, for what it was, and, the first dismay 
over, rallied her powers to endure it. It was a novel 
experience, met as her mother’s daughter should con- 
front it. She would not sing again, nor did she trust 
herself to another tite-a-tite with him whose “ love had 
loved alway” that beautiful dead woman ; but neither 
did she let herself think of the fair face shut in behind 
jealously-locked doors upstairs. She bore her part in 
dialogue and general talk, and smiled consent to 
Hollis Lee’s petition preferred soon after dinner, 
that he might see her home. 


3o8 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


The boy had worn a harassed look for much of the 
evening when he was not talking or -singing, and at 
the door accosted Mrs. Phelps, who, under Dr. 
Williams’s convoy, had reached home before the 
young people, and waited for them on the piazza. 

Will you let me come in for a few minutes ? I 
wish to consult you about a perplexing affair.” 

Upon obtaining permission he followed the ladies 
into the library. 

“ Don’t go. Miss Phelps ! ” seeing Salome hesitate 
on the threshold. “ You know all the details of the 
scrape, and may plead for mercy with my judge.” 

The “ scrape ” was serious. The withered bouquet 
he had flung away had blossomed anew, as expeditiously 
as Aaron’s rod, and more luxuriantly. The story of, 
the ingratitude and slight practised by pastor and 
pastoress upon the woolliest of the flock, and of her 
unlamblike but just revenge, was running through 
Freehold and its environs like a prairie-fire before a 
tornado. In vain had the real culprit openly pro- 
claimed his guilt and the innocence of his relatives. 
The church was up in arms ; every tongue wagged 
one way, and that in condemnation of the luckless 
pair who had “ never been quite, like Freehold folks,” 
and therefore must have been cut cut and made up 
askew. 

Mrs. Phelps was gravely regretful, and, as Hollis 
had foreseen, ready with active sympathy. 

“ I wish Mr. Phelps were at home ! ” she said. 
“ But I will write the whole story to him to-morrow. 
He is a great favorite with Mrs. Fitchett, and may 
have influence to change her decision. It cannot be 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


309 

be possible, in this Christian age, that such a trifle 
could result in serious disaster. It will all blow 
over, you may be sure. Fireless smoke -always 
does.” 

Salome sat by, silent and heavy-eyed, but sufficiently 
interested in what was going on as not to turn eye or 
ear to the window into which Rex Impton glanced in 
treading lightly up the piazza steps. 

Careless of the chance of exciting Isabel’s suspicions, 
he had taken his hat upon the departure of the other 
guests, and come over for a more satisfactory good- 
night than that exchanged in the sight of all. He 
was not jealous of his rival, if jealousy be inseparable 
from doubt of the affection of his betrothed wife. But 
he would not have another man imagine for one de- 
luded second, that Salome could ever belong to him j 
was miserly of looks and smiles shed upon the self- 
duped suitor. With the mad hunger of a nature 
long starved, he wanted to have her all to himself, and 
chafed at the delay of the moment when he might 
announce to the world that no other claim could 
compete with his. 

He paused for a whole minute, irresolute — looking 
through the casement at the fair young creature 
seated in her low chair, her elbow on her mother’s 
knee, her chin cradled in her palm, the filmy folds of 
her evening dress lying like still heaps of mist on the 
carpet, her dark, earnest eyes bent on the handsome 
visage of the speaker. 

“ He looks like a more suitable partner for her than 
I ! ” thought the unseen observer with a pang. “ But 
he shall never take her from me, however passionately 


310 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


he may love and woo. What is that boy’s love to 
mine ? ” 

As stealthily as he had drawn near, he retired. 

Salome raised herself wearily when Hollis had 
gone. 

“ I am tired ! tired ! tired ! mamma! ” 

“ I know it, my love. Go directly to bed. I will 
look in upon you before you can fall asleep.” 

She did this on six nights out of seven. The pair, 
as Richard complained, “were never talked out.” 

The chamber was dark and the child had laid her- 
self among the pillows, when the mother tapped at 
the door. She carried a taper which she set on a 
table so remote from the bed that the features of the 
occupant were indistinctly seen. Sitting upon the 
bedside she met the seeking hand with a caress, and 
fondled the hot, tremulous fingers. 

“ My darling did not enjoy the evening as much as 
I hoped she would,” said the full, soft voice that 
brought with the hearing, comforting assurance of 
strength and love. 

Her children had grown up with the persuasion 
that “ mamma ” could right all wrongs. Her husband 
had said once of her : “ Were my wife, in any strait, 
to lose heart, and confess herself baffled, I should in- 
continently blow my brains out. The end of all 
things would have come for me.” 

Salome nestled nearer to her. One unsteady hand 
stole up to the cool, firm cheek. 

“ It wasn’t the evening only, mamma ! I have had 
a heartache nearly all day. I hoped that I had 
hidden it.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


311 

‘‘ You were very brave, sweet one. Very success- 
ful in concealing it from all eyes except mine, and 
Rex’s. He watched you anxiously all the even- 
ing.” 

The fingers fluttered, but the girl made no verbal 
response, and the mother forbore further direct ques- 
tioning. 

“ Mrs. Lupton asked me, to-night, if it were true 
that your engagement to Hollis Lee would be an- 
nounced as soon as papa got back. She has heard it 
authoritatively asserted several times, she says.” 

Salome stirred fretfully. 

“ How absurd! ” she sighed. “ I hope you told her 
that neither of us ever thought of such a thing. As 
if the poor boy had not enough to annoy him without 
furnishing more gossip for ill-natured people ! Mam- 
ma, what a slight thing will darken the world for 
one ! ” 

“ My girlie must not magnify motes. Her sky 
ought to be all fair, just now.” 

“ It was — until — ” She drew the comforter down 
to her pillow, laid a wet, burning cheek against hers. 
“ I saw her picture to-day ! Quite by accident. Mrs. 
Lupton was at work in that room, and called me up- 
stairs. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. I am 
such a poor thing by comparison 1 I have seen noth- 
ing but that face — thought of nothing but how they 
loved one another, ever since. Don’t despise me ! 
Hold me closer, mamma ! I have been haunted by 
the thought that I am robbing her — that her right 
must always be superior to mine — have felt lonely and 
far off from Rex ! ” 


312 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


The troubled whisper died into silence as troubled. 
No answer followed at once — other than kiss after kiss 
on hair, lips, and eyes, and such fervor of embrace 
that the child could hardly breathe. 

“ My precious one ! my pure, noble, loving little 
daughter ! ” said the sweet voice in an agony of ten- 
derness, yet with a ring of keener emotion. 

She put the girl abruptly out of her arms ; went 
over to the taper and set a shade before it ; returning 
to the bed to stand beside it ; attitude and tone so 
unlike the passion of the previous moment that the 
listener was alarmed. 

“ Salome ! daughter ! never repeat to any one — 
least of all, to Rex — what I am about to tell you. I 
have never breathed it until now. Rex Lupton’s first 
betrothed did not love him ! Her heart was entirely 
given to another. If she had lived, he must have 
found this out.” 

A shuddering gasp escaped the listener. 

“ Mamma, are you sure ? Had you proof ? ” 

As strong as heaven! as terrible as never-dying 
fires ! ” 

The girl groped in the darkness to wrap her arms 
about the bowed form. The tense, hoarse tone was 
utterly unfamiliar. • 

“ It was dreadful for She was your dearest 
friend! But oh, I thank God that my poor dear 
never guessed it ! He never must ! he never shall ! ” 

And with wild weeping of — “ How could she ? how 
could she deceive him ? ” she sobbed the bitterness 
out of her heart. 

‘‘ One question ! ” clinging to her mother, as she 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


313 

regained composure. “ Did that other— man— know 
it ?” 

“ Yes ! ” 

“ And returned it ? Knowing her to be betrothed 
to this true, honorable lover? ” 

‘‘ Yes ! ” 

“ You would not like to tell me his name — that I 
might despise him knowingly ? ” 

“ It would not be right. You will probably never 
know him.” 

I would not ! The base hound ! ” 

Salome ! ” 

“ I mean it, mamma ! It was well she died ! Did 
she confess it to you ? ” 

“ No. There was a letter. I found it after the — 
accident. By will, she left the examination of her 
papers to me.” 

“ And all this you have borne alone ! Does papa 
know ? ” 

“ I said that I have told no one but you. Now, 
put it out of your thoughts! ” 

The girl held her fast, as she would have moved. 

“ I can understand why you shielded her from 
papa’s blame. With his strict sense of honor, and his 
love for you, he would have judged her very harshly. 
How merciful, how considerate, how loyal you are! 
And she is beyond the reach of it all, now ! the pain, 
and the censure — poor, unhappy woman ! Mamma, 
is it very wicked that I cannot help being thankful 
that Rex never really belonged to anybody else ? He 
doesn’t know it — but what matter so long as / do ? ” 

Mrs. Lupton was not habitually an early riser. 


314 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


With her perfect balance of nerves and commendatory 
conscience, she slept like a wearied child with whom 
dentition is a past grief. She lifted her pure heart 
fervently in acknowledgment to the unknown deity 
who awoke her at an unseasonable hour on the morn- 
ing succeeding the dinner-party, by the recollection 
of certain undistributed orders which the servants 
appointed to clear up the disordered rooms should 
have had overnight. 

Thrusting her feet into slippers, and casting a 
dressing-gown about her, she descended to the scene 
of operations. On the hat-rack in the hall lay a letter. 
A square white envelope, addressed in Mrs. Phelps’s 
hand to “ Mr. Rex Lupton.'^ 

“ When did this come ?” she inquired, judicially. 

^‘Just a minute ago, ma’am!” responded Maggie 
from the drawing-room. 

“ It should not be left here in the dust.” 

While she gave her gentle, explicit directions, she 
felt that the edges of the closed flap of the envelope 
were still damp. By the time she gained the first 
landing, her delicate forefinger had overcome the 
loosely-cohering gum. Had it been more tenacious, 
five minutes over a clip of boiling water would have 
accomplished the desired result. 

“ Dear Rex,” Mrs. Phelps had written hastily, “ I 
must have been more blind than you were had I not 
seen last night that our dear girl was ill-at-ease. Since 
the opportunity to dispel the slight cloud was not per- 
mitted to you, I, acting in your interest, undertook 
the task where we reached home. 

“ Without going into details, let me intimate as 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


315 


gently as is possible in the circumstances, that she is 
haunted. This is strictly confidential. I need not 
caution you to exceeding tact and delicacy in dealing 
with our darling in this regard. We — you and I — 
will not speak again of the matter. I thought you 
ought to know what was the origin of the shadow you 
noticed. In haste, yours, Mamma.” 

So-0-0 ! ” The reader’s features wore an ex- 
pression of unfeigned regret, tinged with benevolent 
commiseration, while she touched the inside of the 
flap with her mucilage-brush and pressed it down. 
“ I am sorry she would enter the lists ; I would not 
hurt the brave creature if it could be avoided. And 
a scene is — a scene ! But, Allah il Allah ! ” 

When Rex presented himself rather late in the 
breakfast-room, the sealed letter lay by his plate. 


CHAPTER XV. 


* ‘ T T 7ELL ! if this ain't a Proverdince ! ” 

VV Richard Phelps looked up from the morning 
paper he was reading at his ease in the parlor-car. 

Mrs. Fitchett’s florid face, like the sun in a drouth, 
shone upon him from the next chair in front. She 
must have occupied it for several minutes, for the train 
was drawing out of the Boston station ; her parcels 
were disposed in the rack overhead ; she had un- 
pinned and thrown back her wrap. She always trav- 
elled “ in style." Her diamond ear-rings, black silk 
gown trimmed with steel passementerie, her lace col- 
lar and India shawl, advertised her as Somebody. The 
fat hand she gave her neighbor was done up in a span 
new glove, tan-colored, embroidered with scarlet-and- 
black. 

“ To think I shouldn’t ’a’ noticed you ’tell I turned 
’roun’ ! ’’ she continued. “ I can’t never abide t’ face 
the ingin’. You gits all the dust, an’ can’t see a soul. 
So I wheels my chair right about face, ’n’ sez I t’ 
myself, ‘ I want to know ! If that ain’t Richard 
Phelps behind that paper, why then it’s his twin- 
brother ! ’’ sez I, “ an’ here I’ve sot for full three 
minutes an’ ain’t never sensed that there was an 
acquaintance on the car ! ’’ 

“ I am glad it was not my twin ! ’’ responded the 
gentleman, gallantly. ‘‘ Did you drop from the skies 
316 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 3i7 

that I did not see you come in ? How long have you 
been in Boston ? ” 

“ I come up yest’day. Stayed at th’ Tree-mount 
last night, bein’ jest fair wore out with a hard day’s 
shoppin’. Been spendin’ money by the bale ’n’ crate, 
you bet! Why, my bill to Jordan ’n’ Marsh’s was 
'nough fur to give a body an attack o’ articuler mor- 
tars, ’s you might say ! ” 

Articulo /” translated the tickled auditor, 

mentally. “ Nothing could be finer ! How Madeline 
and Salome will enjoy that 1 ” 

Aloud, he remarked : “ As a good citizen, you ought 
to appreciate the ability to put so much money into 
general circulation.” 

“ Indeed, then, I don’t ! Yest’day being stock- 
holders’ day on th’ Borst’n ’n’ Alb’ny Railroad, I 
come down free t’ save the fare. I ain’t above savin’ 
a penny hones’ly when I ken, I ken tell you. In one 
way, of course, I like havin’ plenty ’n’ t’ spare o’ th’ 
wherewithal, 'n’ am thankful t’ a almighty ’n’ divine 
Proverdince what hez give it t’ me richly t’ enj’y, ’n’ 
added no sorrow with it, so t’ speak. Without you 
choose t’ ceount in that light the desease o’ my sainted 
pardner, which was, after all ’s said ’n’ done, only in 
the course o’ nater, he bein’ consid’able my seniority 
in ’ears, ’n’ pulmenerry with rhewmatism ’n’ fatty 
regeneration o’ the heart an’ th’ liver, for a term o’ 
years.” 

Richard made a pencilled note on the margin of his 

Herald.” Good things were likely to be too plen- 
tiful to be entrusted to memory. 

‘‘ This is delicious ! ” he chuckled to himself while 


•n 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


318 

writing. I never saw her in better case and im- 
agination.” 

^‘Jordan ’n’ Marsh’s for me, every time, the world 
over ! ” she was going on when the pencil stopped. 
“ Prices ’n’ variety ’n’ styles is all precisely to my 
likin’. You wouldn’t b’lieve what I give for a genu- 
wine Alasker sealskin for F’delia, — real fine fur, too, 
’ll’ trimmed with nottarj ’n’ ’changed if ’t don’t fit, 
expressage paid one way. That I al’ays look out for ! 
Two hund’ed ’n’ twenty-five dollars ! You’ve stayed 
’way longer ’n’ you ’spected to when you left home — 
ain’t you ? ” 

“ Unfortunately — yes ! I had to go as far as Port- 
land, then to Albany, and back again to Boston, 
dancing attendance upon courts and clients. I left 
Freehold ten days ago.” 

Heard from any your folks since you come 
away ? ” 

An amused half-smile curled the blonde moustache. 

“ Oh, yes ! My wife and I belong to the old-fash- 
ioned school of sweethearts. We write to one another 
every day when we are separated. Isn’t that pretty 
well done for people who will celebrate their silver 
wedding-day in four years ? ” 

The lift of the widow’s nose and chin were inde- 
scribable. 

“ Humph ! ” she said, with volumes in the mono- 
syllabled interjection. 

Richard’s sweet nature let him descry nothing but 
cause for fun in her behavior. She was to him a 
neighborhood comic almanac, a perpetual calendar of 
absurdities. He liked to draw her out and on. 


A GALLAIV7' FIGHT. 


319 


For shame, Mrs. Fitchett ! I hadn’t expected a 
sneer at wedded happiness from you ! What would 
certain hopeful Freehold admirers say if I were to 
report you ? It is lucky I am not an enterprising 
widower with designs and expectations. I should be 
crushed ! ” 

She disdained the bait. 

“ I’ll lay a pretty penny your every-day missiles ’n’ 
billydoozes ain’t give you all the home-’n’-town news,” 
she said significantly. “ There’s been queer things 
a-meanderin’ ’n’ maraudin’ through Freehold ’n’ its 
percincts latily.” 

Recollecting the story of the despised bouquet, 
narrated in full by his wife’s able pen, he was at no 
loss as to the direction of the fling, but his open face 
was the picture of honest inquiry. Here, he medi- 
tated, might be a golden opportunity for the media- 
tion he projected, pursuant to his wife’s suggestion. 
He would do his friends the Lees a good turn, 
and heal an ugly breach in church and town, if suc- 
cessful. 

“ Such as what ? ” he asked. “ Nothing unpleasant, 
I trust?” 

That’s ’cordin' as folks is inclined to take it. 
First-off — I’ve moved my church c’nection from th’ 
Ole North Hill t’ th’ Wes’ Side ! Lef th’ meetin’- 
house ’n’ parish ! Sole the pew what’s been ’n th’ 
Fitchett ’n’ Boggs fam’lies for nigh ’pon forty year ! ” 
triumphantly malicious. 

“ I am extremely sorry to hear it ! ” said Richard, 
in sincere gravity. Less truthfully, he subjoined — 
^^particularly as Mrs. Phelps and I have just con- 


320 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


eluded that we will be happier and more at home in 
Mr. Lee’s church than where we are.” 

“Don’t you do it!” remonstrated the widow 
vehemently. “ If your head’s level ’n’ your heart in 
th’ right place, you’ll think twice befo’ you bring 
yourself ’n’ children und’ th’ inflooence o’ that hyper- 
critical wolf ’n sheep’s clothes, ’n’ that still more 
hypercriticaller woman, his wife. From th’ beginnin’ 
of his ministry ’mongst us, I’ve been sayin’ inter sea- 
son ’n’ outer season, that they was in us, but not of 
us, neither never would or could they be. What I’ve 
bore ’n’ forgive, yet kep’ on hopin’ agin’ hope, ain’t to 
be tole here nor now. I’ve trusted ’n’ prayed — 
though agin’ Scripter and common-sense, that the 
tiger might shed his skin ’n’ the European his spots, 
an’ here’s what’s come o’ sech onnatral doin’s.” 

Richard lowered his eyelids to hide the glee that 
was fairly on tiptoe within him ; compressed his 
mouth to keep the rebellious moustache-ends still, 
while he scribbled, it would seem desultorily, on his 
folded paper. If Madeline were only within earshot ! 
He despaired of doing the subject justice, even with 
the help of his notes. 

The Fitchett was mounted squarely and heavily on 
her high horse. The story, rolled like an unctuous 
morsel under her bitter tongue for so many days, was 
to be rehearsed to an ignorant and sympathetic 
listener. 

“ I ain’t got one soliterry item for t’ reproach my- 
self with, Richard Phelpsd not in a singular, indi- 
vidooal nor identickle perticoolar, hev I occasion for 
repentence. ’S I said to Mrs. Tom Johnston las’ Sun- 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


321 


day night, when she ’n' a couple more o’ my lady 
frien’s ’n’ their husban’s come in after evenin’ service, 
(not hevin’ seen me out all day at church) to labor 
with me on the subjeck, ’n’ findin’ me — all five o’ ’em, 
jes’ ’s firm ’s addermint — Sez I : ‘ Mrs. Johnston,’ 
sez I — ‘ If the Jedge was to summons me to-night t’ 
answer f’ th’ deeds done t’ my minister's body,’ sez 
I — ‘ I ain't a mite afraid but that He’d say by me ez 
He did by th’ Good Samaritan woman, “ She hez done 
what she could J ” ’ ” 

She wiped the bovine eyes in whose murky depths 
ugly coals were beginning to burn, and made an effort 
to be moderate. 

But I’m goin’ on ahead of my narratative ! An' 
after all, maybe you don’t care to hear the rights o’ 
th’ story ? ” 

Indeed I do ! Whatever concerns you interests 
me. And all this grieves me so deeply that I am 
anxious to hear the whole, to see if I may not be of 
some service to you.” 

She gave the history of the tea-party, omitting no 
detail of the pains she had taken to please and honor 
the pastor and his helpmeet ; the presentation of the 
flowers was depicted with the adjunctive particulars 
the tale had gathered to itself by many repetitions. 
The incident of F’delia’s accidental espial from the 
street of what looked like the bunch of buds and 
blooms her too-confiding mother had taken, first from 
her garden, then from her table, and given away over- 
night, accounted for the re-possession of the same, 
and the revelation of the frozen-viperish perfidy of 
those who had so lately partaken of bite and sup over 


322 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


her mahogany “ extension.” “ That young Lee ” had 
tried to draw the fire of righteous indignation by 
offering to take his Bible-oath- that his sister-in-law 
had given him the flowers to carry, on meeting him 
near Mr. Phelps’s gate, and that he had thoughtlessly 
thrown them away without her consent, supposing 
them to be withered. 

“ As if any fool, with half an eye in his head, 
couldn’t see that this is a put-up job ! ” commented 
the injured party ; “a story cut ’n’ carved ’n’ cooked 
t’ suit th’ occasion, ’n’, t’ my taste, consider’ble over- 
done ’n’ not too sweet ! ” 

Richard hearkened with surprising patience, when 
one reflects that the leading points of the narrative 
were not new to him, and that the tone of the speaker 
and the pettiness and vulgarity of the tea-pot tempest 
were repulsive to his taste. At this juncture he 
interposed. He was really fond of Hollis Lee, and 
for his sake wished to serve his relatives, to whom he 
silently gave credit for discretion in not having, under 
pressure, revealed the circumstances of their visit to 
his house on their way home. He had a nervous 
horror of altercation and neighborhood squabbles. 
Thus far the Lees had, very properly, not allowed him 
to be embroiled with them. 

“Excuse me, my dear friend!” he said; “but 
Mr. Hollis Lee called upon me that evening to com- 
plete the details of our new partnership, and in leaving 
mentioned that he should probably join his brother 
and sister on the way home, they having accepted 
your hospitality. That is a bit of corroborative evi- 
dence to the truth of his story.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


323 


She cut the well-designed phrase short, savagely. 

“ He didn’t think to ‘mention ’ that he was invited, 
too, an’ couldn’t come on account o’ hevin’ an en- 
gagement to supper somewheres else — did he ? That 
was trumped-up t’ order, too, ’t seems, if he was only 
a-callin’ to your house on business ! He’s no better 
'n the rest of ’em. The quicker Freehold’s shet o’ 
th’ lot, the better for us ! ” 

Richard was a tolerable judge of human nature, 
and usually happy in his choice of. policy in dealing 
with knotty specimens. He made the mistake now 
of assuming that the angry woman would like to be 
conciliated ; that if her grievance could be lessened in 
her own sight she would return to a more Christian 
frame of mind. Whereas, a broad, safe principle in 
such cases is that he who adds fuel to the wrath of 
the wrathful in the shape of billets of further infor- 
mation in kind, or faggots of approbation, well- 
resined with indignant sympathy, — who would be 
surprised were the plaintiff’s condition of mind other 
than it is, or his fury less fiery, — is rated as the irate 
man’s best friend. The widow’s injury was her 
bantling, — bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. 
The attempt to believe it, or coax it away from her 
embrace, was an affront that aroused a brute ferocity 
within the maternal bosom. 

“ You must let me defend my young friend and 
partner,” Mr. Phelps pursued, falling unconsciously 
into the persuasive “jury droop.” He looked debo- 
nair, elegant, and winning. Fellow-passengers mar- 
velled at seeing him in confidential conclave with a 
blatant, tawdry woman. “ Being young, he is, as he 


324 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


confesses, thoughtless. It is not so long since you were 
a girl yourself, (a pretty one, too, let me observe in pass- 
ing !) that you cannot sympathize with youth. Hollis 
is incapable of deliberate falsehood, or of impertinence 
toward one whom he respects so highly as he does 
yourself. He probably did not ask who gave Mrs. 
Lee the flowers, and she did not miss them until she 
reached home. I am a lawyer, you know, and used to 
weighing evidence. The first step toward proving a 
crime is to find a motive.” 

“ I aint such a goose ez not to know that [ A cor- 
puscle delicty — you call it ! ” 

Exactly ! ” with admirable gravity. “ So good a 
judge of mankind and of law as yourself understands 
that people don’t sin for the mere love of sinning. 
What conceivable reason could the Lees have for 
offending you, their most influential parishioner ? 
They have received nothing but favors at your hands. 
They have everything to hope for from a continuance 
of your friendship, — everything to dread from your 
displeasure.” 

“ They’d oughter thought o’ that before this time 
o’ day ! ” 

Misreading the gleam of gratified malevolence in 
her visage for softening, he pushed his plea home- 
ward : 

“ They, have thought of it, and supposed that they 
were acting judiciously. We must not confound errors 
of judgment and taste with ill-nature and ingratitude. 
Come, my old schoolmate ! put the case in my hands, 
and let me earn the blessing of the peacemaker. I 
shall ask no fee except the pleasure of seeing you 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


325 


again on friendly terms with our excellent pastor, 
who must have suffered far more from this unfortunate 
misunderstanding than you ever could. He has had 
a severe but useful lesson, rather disproportionate to 
his offence, let us admit. Whatever his wife and 
brother may have done, he seems to be guiltless. 
Don’t you recollect telling me how much more desir- 
able he was, as man and preacher, than the West 
Side pastor ? Stand by your testimony and forgive 
and forget ! Quarrels are such wretched things ! 
especially in families and churches. I cannot speak 
from experience, being a man of peace, who would 
submit to much before he would get into a row — ” 

The widow untied her bonnet-strings. 

‘‘ Look out ! ” said a wicked boy at my ear at a 
camp-meeting years ago, before “ shouting ” went out 
of vogue. “ Miss Jenny Clemm is pulling off her 
gloves! She used to beat out a new pair, every meet- 
ing. Now she rolls them up and puts them in her 
pocket before she lets fly the first ‘ Glory, halle- 
lujah ! ’ She’s a rouser, when she gets all steam on ! ” 

The bonnet-strings clogged the turgid veins in the 
relict’s short neck, but there was no knowing urchin 
to bid her companion “ look out ! ” when she undid 
them. The glower of the bloodshot eyes, the flatten- 
ing and lowering of the scalp above them, affected the 
amazed beholder as if an adder, with swollen head 
and hissing tongue, had sprung at him from a harm- 
less-looking tuft of herbage. 

“ It’s the opinion o’ some o’ your friends that 
you’d be more of a man if you did pick a quarrel now 
’n’ then! Or, at least, take up one as is throwed at you ! 


326 A GALLANT FIGHT. 

Gospel-meekness is all very fine ’n’ megocious^ ’n’ 's a 
nice thing for to orate upon to other folks ’s as has 's 
much religion 's you, maybe, but there’s circumstances 
when a man gits to be more respected ’f he shows a 
leettle o’ the sperrit of a man, ’n’ a husban’ ! 'Taint 
none o’ my business, you may think, 'n’ I ain’t so 
liable to offerin’ my jedgment, ’thout it's bein’ asked, 
's some folks ’s I c’d name — but 's long’s frien’Iy 'n' 
pious advice is a-goin’ roun’, I thought I might 's well 
hand you a mouthful ! ” 

Richard’s stare was unfeigned wonderment. Had 
the woman gone suddenly crazy ? He lay back in his 
chair and stroked his moustache, dubious whether to 
be vexed or amused. 

I beg your pardon ! ” the temperate, refined in- 
tonations contrasting strikingly with her thick, heated 
articulation. I do not understand you. I have not 
meant to be officious or dictatorial. In what have I 
been deficient in spirit ? and when ? You deal in 
riddles.” 

Mrs. Fitchett’s upper eye-teeth were somewhat 
prominent. They protruded now in a disagreeable 
grin. 

“ 'S if you cared t’ know. You’re no fool ! Though 
it’s pror’ble the smart woman what hez pulled the 
wool over your eyes for one-'n’-twenty year may set 
you down 's one. Smart! well, I guess! Freehold 
ain’t never see the beat of her ! I hope t’ the Lord 
't never will. One o’ her kind 's enough for one 
kermunity. Time was, 'n' for quite a spell, when 
folks tried to make 'lowances for her ’n’ for your 
blindness, considerin’ what stock you came from, ’n’ 


A GALLAiVl' FIGHT. 


327 


you bein’ easy-natered ’n’ sosherbul ; but the air is 
jes’ blue with talk now, I ken tell you ! ” 

The train halted at a station. Richard withheld a 
hasty retort until they were again in motion, and the 
clatter and rumble drowned his words for other ears. 

“ You cannot mean to allude to my wife !" he said, 
leaning forward. “ If so — be very careful what you 
say.” 

The widow was no coward, although a native-born 
bully and braggart. The livid face brought near her 
own, the flashing blue eyes, the whitened muscles 
about the mouth, the sudden and spirited challenge, 
— were naphtha upon flame. She laughed insolently, 
looking right into the gleaming eyes, and snapped a 
pudgy thumb and finger derisively. 

That for her ! and ” — repeating the action — “///«/ 
for her husban’ ! A poor, chicken-livered chap, full 
o’ conceit ’s a’ negg is o’ meat, ’n’ too busy makin’ 
up other folkses’ quarrels t’ interfere when another 
man makes love t’ his wife under his very nose ! 
Smart ! she’s so much smarter ’n you that she actially 
used her best friend (that’s what she called her t’ 
other ’n’ decenter people !) ’s a blind f’ her carryin’s- 
on with that stuck-up pup of a Rex Lupton, ’n’ you 
never guessed what she was at. Everybody else saw 
it, though, you may depen’.” 

“ Mrs. Fitchett,” resolutely and haughtily, “ we 
will have no more of this, if you please ! You are too 
much excited to know what you are saying. When 
you are calmer, I shall demand an explanation.” 

“ Deman’ ! I like that.” At the harsh shriek of 
laughter a dozen people turned their heads tov/ard 


328 


A G ALLAN 7' FLGHT. 


the ill-matched couple. “ Til give it t’ you now, 
whether you’ll let or leave it. 'F you’d ’a’ heard th’ 
talk as went on over my supper-table the night I was 
a-tellin’ you 'bout jes’ now, — even your sainted Lees 
a-takin’ a han’ at it, — you might hev a little o’ the stiff- 
ness taken out o’ you, ’n’ be a mite less forrard in 
offerin’ profeshonul advice, free graytus ’n’ fur nothin’, 
to peaceable, respectable widder-women. There ain’t 
a man what teches his hat t’ Mr. Richard Phelps, 
^j-quire, ’s he struts ’long the streets o’ the town 
he was born in, ’n’ his fine-lady-wife is been a natyve 
of, f’, maybe, two years ’n’ all, — but knows more how 
matters is run up ’n’ the big house ’n’ the hill with all 
the furren gimcracks in it, nor Richard Phelps him- 
self dooz. She's a pretty one to interdooce city-ways, 
’n’ late dinners, ’n’ piazzer-teas, ’n’ Turks’ coffee, ’n’ 
the Ole Harry knows what-all besides, in a clean- 
moralled town — she is ! ” 

“ Will you be quiet ?” half frantic, as other passen- 
gers seemed, to his excited fancy, to bend in their 
direction as if to catch a word here and there. 

“ Well, I wont ^ — till I’ve said my say ! ’N’ I don’t 

ask you t’ take hearsay evidence, neither. That’s 
legalized talk, — ain’t it ? ” with a broader and eviller 
grin. “ The very evenin’ o’ the day you lef home, — 
not two hours after I’d seen you a-scramblin’, like a 
monkey, up a bank for to git some rubbishy wild 
truck for her, — I went over to see her on this very 
identickle business you are s’ erfficious about. ‘ For,’ 
says I to myself, ‘ she may know somethin’ o’ the way 
that bookay got inter th^t evergreen-tree, same’s if it 
had ’a’ growed there, 'tyTW give them Lee-folks the 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 329 

credit o’ the doubts,’ says I, ‘ the gretest of ’em bein’ 
charity ’n’ men’s words, — not t’ say women’s, a sound- 
in’ brass ’n’ a tinklin’ cymblin ! ’ says I, ’s I went up 
the hill ’thout waitin’ to take my bonnet off after my 
ride with Mrs. Tom Johnston, who was all for me not 
asking her one livin’ question about it. ’N’ me, with 
good-will ’n’ peace on earth a-bubblin’ over th’ sides 
o’ my soul, ’s you might say, ’n’ coinin’, quiet-like, 
bein’ a light-stepper al’ays, f’ one o’ my weight, — on 
to th’ porch o’ your house, what sh’d I see but him 
on his bent knees to her ’ n ’ the parlor, through the 
winder, — f all the world like a chromio out of a tea- 
store ! An’ while I stood there, fairly takin’ root 
inter the floor, bein’ that horrified-like — I behelt with 
these very eyes, her a-put her two arms ’roun’ his neck, 
'n’ kiss him, ’n* they two all alone ’n’ the parler, close 
by the planner — 's help me, God ! ” 

“ I do not believe one word of it ! ” came low and 
roughly from the lips of the man opposite her. 

His face was gray as ashes. The blue eyes, usually 
so warm and lucent, were as opaque as lead. Had 
the virago ever heard the saying, “ Beware the wrath 
of a patient man ! ” she must have recalled it, and 
quailed. 

“ Not one syllable of the foul story ! ” he repeated, 
the dogged, desperate set of his chin and jaw more 
emphatic than the outrageous rudeness of the words. 

As you are a woman, I can only thrust the lie back 
upon you, and warn you that if I ever hear of your 
repeating it, I will prosecute you for slander to the 
fullest extent of the law. I hereby forbid you ever 
to take my wife’s name upon your lips again in any 


330 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


connection whatever, and decline to continue the con- 
versation now, or at any time.” 

She arrested his motion to rise by clapping him on 
the knee and bending toward him, the ugly sneer yet 
on her mouth. 

“You needn’t make a time here, ’n’ set everybody 
to starin’ ’n’ talkin’ in a public car ! I say ! there’s 
a’ easy way to settle the question. Ask madam when 
you get home if I have tole the truth, or a lie. I ain’t 
accustom’ to bein’ give the lie direc’ ’n’ p’int-blank. 
Put your macherlet wife onter the witness-stan’, an’ 
call me in t’ hear her evidence. I ain’t skeered as t’ 
what she’ll say. Ask her, agin, ’bout the walks ’n’ 
talks on th’ piazza ’n’ the moonlight since you’ve 
been away, ’n’, goin’ back farther yet, who rid up- 
street with her the day you ’n’ her bosom-frien’, what 
never come home alive, went off together t’ Alb’ny. 
You might a’ traded off, all ’round, if you’d a’ knowd 
how th’ Ian’ lay behind you.” 

He shook off the loathly touch, whirled his chair 
about, sat down with his back to her, and vouchsafed 
not another glance or word for the rest of the journey. 

Overmastering anger against the creature, coarse- 
grained and bed-tempered, who had dared traduce 
his wife, ruled his thoughts for the first silent half- 
hour. He discredited the tale wholly. Imagina- 
tion summoned to face the lurid-eyed, vulgar-tongiied 
termagant the mute visage of the pure, noble mother 
of his children, refined in every instinct and motion, 
chaste of impulse, elevated of thought ; the woman 
who had not hid a sentiment or action from him in 
over a score of years, and in all that time had never 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


33 ^ 


come short of his expectations ! He ground his 
teeth in impotence of regret that her accuser was not 
another man that he might choke him with the vile 
falsehood. 

Once he had nearly put out his arms before he was 
conscious of the action, — so real did his wife’s pres- 
ence seem to him, and his lips stirred with her name. 

“Madeline! Madeline! Great heavens! do not J 
know what a devilish^ slander this is ! You never 
had a thought of loye for any other man than myself. 
As for that shy, hulking boy — ” 

He did not put the next thought into words 
even to himself, but clenched fist and jaws were 
not indices of abatement of fury. Working, rather 
than settling, down into calmness, in the next 
hour, he arrived at a definite conclusion. He 
would not insult his wife by retailing the unclean 
trash the Thing behind him had told him. But he 
had never liked Rex Lupton, and he knew that Made- 
line, at heart, held him in affectionate esteem. On 
this variation of tastes they had generally preserved 
a discreet silence. She met his infrequent slurs upon 
the young mill-owner with tranquillity, and never 
praised him in words. As a rule, he respected her 
fancies, indulged her prejudices whenever he divined 
them, and since it pleased her to dignify into a hero 
the most commonplace man he knew, and in some 
respects the most obnoxious, he refrained from criti- 
cising Rex in her hearing, and treated him with 
marked — if soulless — courtesy whenever he was 
obliged to meet the son of his old friend. 

Richard Phelps was as thin-skinned as a blooded 


332 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


horse where his personal popularity was involved. 
He chafed and writhed in torture under the thought 
that, in the community where he believed himself to 
be everybody’s favorite and pride, he was pitied and 
mocked behind his back. The picture of his self- 
complacent progress through the streets, wrapped 
snugly in the consciousness that an atmosphere of 
affectionate appreciation enveloped him, as the 
breezes from his native hills, — had been sketched in 
few, but broad dashes of the widow’s charcoal. In 
reviewing his life of the past three months, his vanity 
was rubbed raw by this new adjustment of relative 
positions. He saw the covert sneer, heard the hiss of 
scorn, the sly laugh when he had passed, the com- 
passionate patronage of the “ poor fellow in whom 
there was no harm,” that galled most cruelly of all. 

What had this whelp done to. compromise the 
Phelps name, and draw public attention to his — 
Richard Phelps’s — family relations? There should be 
an end, at once and forever, of his sentimental hang- 
ing about the premises ; the unconventional dropping- 
in at irregular hours, the drive, walks, and rides with 
Salome and Paul, that had been permitted to the 
friend of long standing and sedate deportment. The 
fellow had formed the habit of coming across the lawn 
to spend his evenings, and the few spare afternoon 
hours that fell into his lot, when he was courting Mar- 
ion Bayard, and now kept going through the motions 
through sheer want of enterprise — the long-backed 
fool ! Had this abominable rumor, joining his name 
with the woman who was immeasurably his superior, 
ever reached his ears ? If so, the husband felt that 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


333 


here, at least, was something and somebody he could 
handle. 

Had the story of the kiss in the drawing-room 
been as empty a fiction as that of the rest of the 
love-drama? the play which grinning Freehold had 
watched through all these years ? 

Lupton was thirteen years younger than Madeline. 
She regarded him as a lad who had once been en- 
gaged to her adopted sister. But he was mature for 
his age, and nothing of a “ ladies’ man.” Marion’s 
mocking assertion that he was born a hundred years 
old recurred to the thinker here, and Mrs. Phelps’s 
steadfast advocacy of the reserved suitor. Also, that 
he had flung out petutantly at the girl, one day, that 
her friend had done most of the wooing. She had 
answered with temper, and dealt him a sarcastic cut 
he could not recollect at this lapse of time without 
wincing. 

But this malicious babble of Lupton’s philandering 
with Richard Phelps’s wife must be stopped im- 
mediately. Madeline ought to be chary of sisterly 
caresses to the presumptuous muff. It was unlike her 
matronly dignity to grant such to any man beside 
himself and Paul. Perhaps the sad-eyed fellow had 
carried to her some pitiful story, and whined on his 
knee for consolation — which she gave, for Marion’s 
sake. He would not entertain for a second the pro- 
position that he should confront the innocent, high- 
minded woman with her slanderer — yet the latter 
must have felt pretty sure of her footing to dare make 
the oft'er of the test. 

So immersed was he in sombre reverie that he did 


334 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


not observe the slackening pace of the train ; re- 
mained motionless, until the brakeman’s shout of 
“ Freehold ! ” awoke him. 

He waited, without quitting his place, or glancing 
around, until sure that Mrs. Fitchett left the car, and 
to avoid the possible risk of encountering her on the 
platform, loitered in alighting. He was the last traveler 
to step from the train, and the whistle and bell of the 
engine signalled his danger as he swung himself off. 
The first person he saw was his wife, anxiously scan- 
ning the moving cars, a shadow of disappointment 
beginning to settle upon her with the almost certainty 
that he was not there. She stood near the track, a 
little in advance of the moving throng of arriving 
passengers and bustling employes ; the electric light 
blazed over her, showing every lineament of the serious 
face, the stately, unconscious pose of her figure. 

“ Wives who have love-passages with other men do 
not watch for their husbands so ! ” 

He hated himself for the hurrying thought, as he 
almost caught her in his arms in the sight of porters, 
hackmen, and loiterers. 

My love ! my dear love ! ” he murmured, in a 
passion of penitence, his countenance irradiated with 
the rapture of return. “ I have been away so long ! ” 
he added, semi-apologetically. It seems more like 
ten years than ten days ! And this day’s journey 
was interminable ! ” 

She had driven down for him in the covered car- 
riage, for a fine, close rain was thickening into a 
storm with the evening’s premonition of autumnal 
chill. Whatever might be the weather, she invariably 


A G ALLAN 7' FIGHT, 


335 


met him at the station in person on his return from 
journeys short or long. She was looking well and 
bright, he saw, at once, with a throb of gratification 
and relief — much better than when he went away. 
The coachman touched his hat and smiled, well- 
pleased at his master’s greeting. I’he gleam of 
the station-lamps struck on the trappings of the 
harness and lighted up the interior of the luxurious 
vehicle. The dampened plumes of his self-satis- 
faction arose with the tangible evidences of his 
personal consequence and the value of his be- 
longings. He put his wife into the carriage, and 
leaped in after her, shutting out the view of uncom- 
fortable pedestrians and sidewalks slippery with 
black mud. Richard was himself again. 

Salome was well and expecting him eagerly, he 
learned from his wife’s talk, and there had arrived that 
day, a cheerful letter from Paul. Plollis Lee was in 
that afternoon to report all right at the office. Noth- 
ing had occurred of general interest in the town. 

“ If I except the Lee-Fitchett imbroglio,” she 
amended the last statement. I saw her get off the 
train, but she cut me dead, absolutely drawing her 
skirts closer as she passed me with a melo-dramatic 
“ Holier-than-thou ” gesture, that was very funny. I 
suppose she cannot forgive me for the complicity of 
the Norway fir in re bookay and pastoress. Did you 
speak to her on the journey? She was sure to intro- 
duce the subject if she had your ear for ten seconds. 
Poor woman ! Can you conceive of a littleness of 
soul that can revel in such pettiness of spite ? ” 

“ We had a brief talk. Then I got out of the way. 


336 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


She is a violent, vulgar, venomous virago ! '' turning 
to look out of the window streaming with rain, and 
striving to speak jocularly. “With which alliterative 
anathema we will dismiss her for more agreeable 
topics ! ” 

The home-coming was very sweet to the nerve-tired 
man. His bath was ready, warmed to the precise 
temperature he liked ; clean clothing laid out in the 
dressing-room ; mother and daughter had dressed 
with direct reference to his taste ; the dinner was ex- 
quisite, and a thought of him had gone into soup, 
entries and dessert. A gala-air pervaded the house, — 
a breath of welcome met him at the door, a smile of 
greeting lingered in every room. The reunion was 
a poem that fulfilled every longing. 

He was trying to express his appreciation of this in 
the library after dinner, while sipping the coffee his 
wife had made, and smoking the cigar Salome had 
lighted. 

“ It is not often that the weary wanderer’s welcome 
is ‘ round and perfect as a star,’ ” he said, in mock- 
heroic strain, made earnest by the ring of his tone 
and happy face. “ What is it, James ? ” 

“ A note, suh ! ” apologized that functionary, bow- 
ingly. 

Richard took it — a dainty, scented envelope with 
nibbled edges, that should have been handed on a vel- 
vet cushion, instead of a silver waiter— and read it, 
his cigar between his teeth — then passed it to his wife. 

“ It is headed, “ Confidential^" she objected, glanc- 
ing at the caption. 

“ Pshaw ! that is one of the fair Isabel’s sensational 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


337 


touches. The confidence is probably nothing more 
startling than Gerald’s latest fracas with his tutor. 
I wish that brother of his would stoop to sublunary 
matters long enough to administer a sound drubbing 
to the jackanapes. He is dying for the want of it, as 
Mrs. Lupton would see quickly enough were he 
another woman’s son.” 

“ O papa ! ” cried Salome, with a hurt look hardly 
justified by her interest in the spoiled lad. “ You 
never flogged Paul.” 

“ There are boys and boys, my dear ! Or, to 
speak more accurately, boys and cubs. Ought I to 
go, Madeline ? Mightn’t I send an apology and a 
promise to look in to-morrow morning ? I am very 
tired. The trip has taken more out of me than I was 
aware of until I put into harbor. And I am so 
divinely comfortable that to stir from my “ain ingle- 
side ” seems like a sin.” 

She looked up thoughtfully from the summons, 
which was in these words : 

Dear Mr. Phelps : 

“ Rex went to New York this afternoon and I may 
not expect him back for three days. So, in a business 
emergency that has arisen, I have no trustworthy 
adviser except yourself. I regret that the aforesaid 
need has fallen upon your precious first evening at 
home, but I promise Mrs. Phelps that I will not 
detain you longer than necessary. Half an hour — or 
less — should settle the whole affair. Ask her to 
forgive 

“ Yours (and hers) truly, 

“Isabel Lemoine Lupton.” 


338 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


‘‘ I do not see how you can refuse such a reason- 
able request. Mrs. Lupton is not one to make 
needless demands upon her friends, and she promises 
not to keep you late. I am sorry the weather is so 
disagreeable. Won’t you wear your overcoat? The 
air is raw.'’ 

Not for so short a run.” 

He had been into the hall and returned to the 
room, hat and umbrella in hand, manifestly reluctant 
to leave home. With true Southern love for a blaz- 
ing hearthstone, Mrs. Phelps had ordered a wood- 
fire to be kindled in the library, and Salome had fed 
it, when made, with a choice store of resinous cones, 
from a great basketful which she and Rex had 
gathered in the piney cathedral and brought home in 
the phaeton the preceding day. The room was fra- 
grant with their burning; a lamp' with a rose-tinted 
shade joined its warm glow to their flare ; the silver 
service and translucent china sparkled with ruddy 
lights. 

Salome stood at the corner of the hearth, feaning 
against the mantel. Her smile was a thought pensive, 
but her look was bent affectionately upon him. His 
wife lifted her lips for the kiss he bowed to give ; her 
fine, sweet face distinct and clear as a cameo in 
the falling light of the chandelier .Her gown was of 
the creamy woollen fabric before described as her usual 
home-wear, because he had a fancy for the soft, large 
folds and subdued whiteness. A deep-hearted 
Marechal Niel rose was on her bosom. He inhaled 
the perfume as he stooped over her. The arm-chair 
of wine-colored velvet framed the picture, each har- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


339 


monious detail of which he rehearsed to himself in 
passing along the gravel walks and through the drip- 
ping hedge. 

What a rank idiot I was to let that infamous 
tirade cling to my mind for one minute ! ” he re- 
flected, shutting up his umbrella in the shelter of the 
Lupton porch before rang the bell. “ By George ! 
that fiery-faced scandal-monger ought to flogged 
through the town at the cart’s tail for daring to take 
her name upon her blistering tongue ! ” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


M rs. LUPTON awaited her visitor in her library. 

It was a smaller apartment than the back par- 
lor, from which it was to-night divided by a closed 
portiere of amber plush, powdered ” with purple 
clematis. She, too, had her open fireplace — a grate 
filled with ignited cannel coal. Her robe, which would 
now be called a tea-gown,” was silver-gray silk, 
trimmed with black lace. It trained at the back in a 
Watteau fold, and flowed loose in front from neck to 
feet, yet defined, in some mysterious way, the pliant 
slenderness of the form it feigned to hide. In a tiny 
vase on the stand nearest her amber satin chair were 
a few stars of white jasmine, and a sprig of citron- 
aloes. A screen of leaf-brown satin, with silver swal- 
lows sailing across it, was at the lady’s right hand, to 
break the draught from an oriel-window. 

Richard’s quick eye took in each feature of the 
artistic interior ; his smile expressed pleasure in the 
dramatic setting in which the central figure chose to 
appear. 

“ As stage-dressing — inimitable ! ” was his thought. 
“ All the same, it is a stage ! ” 

It was nevertheless flattering to a man of his tem- 
perament to reflect that she had dressed herself and 
her platform for him alone, the appointment of the 
interview establishing the fact beyond cavil. He 


340 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


341 


liked to be made much of — best of all, when the 
spoiler — or devotee — was a woman, and attractive to 
the aesthetic eye. He uttered a graceful thing or two, 
complimentary of the scene as contrasted with the 
rainy darkness he had left, in accepting the chair to 
which she pointed. It faced her, and cast up her 
neck and bust effectively against the screen, — a cir- 
cumstance he was not slow to perceive. 

“ We will not waste our little half-hour in pretty 
speeches,” she said, the mellow, trainante accents rob- 
bing the remark of brusqueness, but not of directness. 
“ Have you been told at home of the provisional en- 
gagement of marriage between your daughter and my 
step-son ? ” 

“ What ! ” He was on his feet as if struck by a 
bullet. 

Be seated — please ! We have no time for heroics 
— paternal, or step-maternal. The provisional be- 
trothal is ten days old. I do not think the parties 
waited for your going before entering into the con- 
tract. Their delay in announcing the betrothal is 
undoubtedly the result of proper reluctance to speak 
of it before they have received your sanction. My 
step-son’s only religion is belief in the Gospel of Con- 
ventionality. I sent for you to say that the marriage 
would be such a decided inconvenience to me that it 
must not take place. I depend upon you to forbid 
the banns. 

“ You have not recovered your breath, yet, 1 see,” 
the slow, fluent enunciation dropping the words into 
his ears. “ Of course, your second thought — when 
you find your thoughts — will be to consult your wife. 


342 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


However distasteful the alliance may be to you per- 
sonally — and it cannot be anything else — you will 
refer the final decision to her, when you have fumed 
your fill. Now this is just what you must not do. 
To save time and trouble, I will tell you that the 
match is — if not of her making — entirely agreeable to 
her. In fact, I more than surmise that she is piously 
grateful for the chance of making restitution in some 
sort to the bereaved swain for the unkind turn done 
him by Providence so long ago that anybody but a 
springless machine would have forgiven and forgot- 
ten it by now. 

“ Let that pass. Here stands our case : Rex Lup- 
ton, as my children’s guardian and their father’s ex- 
ecutor, cannot do justice to his charge if he has a 
family of his own. I mean to keep this house, and 
maintain a certain decent state in the world. Rex, 
celibate, and, if possible, empty-hearted, is a means 
to that end. I have showed you my hand. The exi- 
gency admits of no fencing with truth. You have a 
dutiful daughter, and a super-dutiful wife. I count 
upon your influence with both.” 

She had given him a minute too long for reflection ; 
time for the first fierce burst of indignant astonish- 
ment to recede, and emotion, upon which she had not 
reckoned, to assert itself. He disliked Rex Lupton, 
but unexpected relief succeeded upon the revolt of 
heart and prejudice against the suggested union. He 
loved his only daughter fondly, but somewhat less 
than he did the wife who had become a necessity of 
his existence by reason of his absolute dependence 
upon her during his invalidism, — and many degrees 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT, 


343 


less that he loved Richard Phelps. The publication 
of this engagement would stamp the lie upon the 
scurrilous reports retailed by the Fitchett. Flis wife’s 
fame would be vindicated ; himself be no longer the 
song of the drunkard in the pot-houses of his native 
town, nor the pity of the pious. The caress that 
other widow may have seen was such as a mother 
might bestow upon a son. In the reaction that 
showed him how heavily the knowledge of the bruited 
scandal had weighed upon him, he took offence at the 
calm imperiousness that dealt with him and his house- 
hold as with marionnettes. “You must,” “you 
shall,” “ I will have it so ! ” were novel terms when 
applied to himself. What warrant had what he men- 
tally styled “ this uncommonly cool hand ” to dis- 
pose his private affairs as she willed, whether his in- 
clination jumped with hers or not ? His daughter’s 
choice was highly objectionable to him. That was 
incontestable. He was by no means sure that he 
would not “ forbid the banns,” but he had played the 
master too long and loftily to be dictated to by any- 
body, were she Fitchett or Lupton. 

“ Your communication has taken me by surprise,” 
he said tranquilly. “ My wife no doubt forecast it 
when she told me this evening that she wished to have 
a long talk with me when I came back. She had not 
time before your message was brought in. As you 
anticipate, I shall depend much upon her judgment in 
forming a decision. To be frank, I like the look of 
the thing, at the first flush, as little as you do. You 
have spoken so openly thatl may venture to be yet more 
frank, and admit that I neither like nor admire your 


344 


A GALLANT FIGHT 


correctly estimable step-son, and think my girl might 
do much better in the matrimonial market. Having 
exchanged confidences thus far, and amicably, we will 
postpone further discussion until I have heard what 
Mrs. Phelps has to say.” 

By no means. You will pledge me your support 
here and now, give me a definite, solemn promise to 
oppose this match by every means at your command. 
Briefly and explicitly, I will 7iot have it I I am not 
talking for effect ” — as he gazed at her in incredulous 
amazement. “ If I had not been also, ‘ taken by sur- 
prise ’ by the engagement, having stultified myself by 
following another trail, I could have managed with- 
out your cooperation. I am confidently of the same 
mind with the man who said — ‘ Time and I against any 
other two ! ’ You are Time’s unworthy substitute, — 
he not being available.” 

Vexed though he was, he saw the ridiculous element 
in her usurpation of despotic rule, and the serene as- 
surance with which she relied upon a free and indepen- 
dent man of station and family to do her behest. He 
had credited her with more sense than to take his 
innocuous gallantries au g7‘and sdrieux. But every 
woman has her weak side. This jolly little fascinator 
presumed upon her influence over her admirers. He 
would let her down gently but decidedly. 

“ My dear Mrs. Lupton,” he said politely and smil- 
ingly ; “we may as well understand one another in 
this matter before more is said. Should my wife see 
reason to permit this engagement — ” 

“ Provisional ! ” she interpolated mildly. 

He bowed. 


A GALL A N’T FIGHT. 


345 


“ This engagement, provisional upon my consent — 
it would be a reflection upon her were I to promise 
you, ‘ here and now,’ never to sanction it. Again, 
Salome is not a child. She will be twenty-one next 
May, and able to marry without my approbation of 
her choice. I appreciate your position, and earnestly 
desire to cooperate with you. But I cannot forfeit my 
child’s confidence and affection, or kick her suitor — a 
man of good family and fortune and irreproachable 
morals — out of my house because I happen not to 
like him. If I should forbid his visits, and command 
Salome to give him up, and she were to rebel — as a 
girl with mind and affections of her own is likely to 
do — how would I have bettered you by alienating her 
and wounding my wife ? ” 

In that event, I should be justified in my eyes, if 
not in yours, in playing my last card. I should regret 
the esclandre^ but self-preservation would demand he- 
roic measures.”* 

“ You have still another card, then ? ” 

He said it in amused curiosity, eyeing her coolly and 
critically, as she arose deliberately from her chair 
with an almost absurd solemnity of motion and visage, 
and rested one slender hand on the leaf-brown screen 
at her right. She was a born sensationalist, but she 
overrated her dramatic ability. This was cheap work. 

“ Is it consistent with the unities of your plot, to 
give me an inkling of what that card is ? ” he asked, 
not without a glimmer of mirthful contempt at the 
combination of stage-effects and evident earnestness 
of purpose. 

“ It is here ! ” 


346 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


A slight push rolled the screen aside. It had 
concealed the tabernacled portrait Salome had seen 
upstairs. The leaves were open ; the angle of obser- 
vation and the fall of the light had been cleverly calcu- 
lated from where he sat. The illusion was so nearly 
perfect that the living woman seemed to confront him.. 
Involuntarily he passed his hand across his eyes ; for 
one blind second the roaring of waves filled his ears, 
the floor rocked under his feet ; voice and breath for- 
sook him. He had never heard that such a portrait 
was in Rex Lupton’s possession, and the exhibition 
had the effect of a wraith. Expert in cunning devices, 
Mrs. Lupton had draped easel and frame with some 
dull-hued Oriental fabric. The beautiful head leaned 
toward the spectator from the shadow of a slightly- 
projecting hood with which the painted background 
was artistically blended. 

It is only on the hired stage that men’s knees smite 
together for a longer instant than is required for the 
rally of conventional look and ward. The show- 
woman wds quite certain of blench and quiver. The 
ordinary observer would have noticed only a start of 
surprise, then the sweep of the hand over the face to 
steady the vision. After that, a man of courtly pres-, 
ence, rising to his feet, because his hostess remained 
standing, and fixing inquiring eyes on her countenance 
while his fingers tugged mechanically at his mous- 
tache. 

“ Ah ! an excellent likeness ! ” he said hesitatingly, 
apparently because he could not think what else was 
expected of him. “ But I fail to see the connection — ” 
With my final play ? Sit down, I beg ! ’’ resum- 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT. 


347 


ing her seat, and, as if idly, picking up an envelope 
from the table at her left, turning it abstractedly over 
in her hand, and pinching the corners hard with thumb 
and forefinger while she talked. “ While you look at 

the picture — it is by C , and a remarkably fine 

painting — let me recall to your mind a question I put 
to you, a fortnight or so ago, relative to a mysterious 
lover of Miss Bayard with whom she was in corre- 
spondence at the time of her death. I had then in my 
desk the documents in the case, and needed no infor- 
mation from you, but I threw out the query as a 
‘ feeler,’ you understand. That was impertinent jest- 
ing. To-night I am in deadly earnest. This — ” 
holding it up suddenly — “ is a letter I took from the 
pocket of the original of that picture after her death. 
It is too long and wordy to be read in full, and Mrs. 
Phelps may be impatient if we exceed the half-hour. 
She was then much engrossed with you, whose decease 
was hourly expected, and arrangements for the obse- 
quies, disposition of effects, etc., devolved upon my hus- 
band and myself. The gown worn by the fatally injured 
traveller was partly burned. Before throwing it away, 
I emptied the pocket of a handkerchief and a letter 
or two. The envelope containing this was not ad- 
dressed. It was my duty to open and read it.” 

She spoke with frightful deliberation, putting need- 
less comma-pauses between some words. Her voice 
was cold and softly rounded, like snow that suffocates 
and freezes. The red-hazel eyes were merciless. 

“ It is a love-letter, but Rex Lupton never wrote it, 
or one like it. The author s aim throughout six pages 
is to prove to the girl he loves against his will, and 


348 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


who returns his passion against her will — and con- 
science — that there is no sin in what is altogether in- 
voluntary. That his heart is large enough to hold 
two of even such incomparable women as his wife and 
herself. The argument is lawyerly and eloquent. 
He reminds her how long and silently he has struggled 
to repress his affection, how faithful and tender he is 
to his noble wife whose devotion to them both has 
drawn them nearer together day by day, ^ as with 
closing links of steel.’ (A verbatim quotation !) How 
steadfastly he kept back the confession of his love, 
even feigning to others, and trying to believe himself, 
that he disliked her. How the betrothal had awakened 
him with a shock that showed him ‘ the sweet and ter- 
rible truth.’ (Another literal quotation ! ) 

I gather from other allusions that she had blinded 
him so effectually as to the state of her affections that 
he had not divined this until on the afternoon of a 
certain horseback ride, when by accident, the carefully 
veiled secret became mutually manifest. I gather, 
furthermore, that the woman fought hard to keep her 
married lover at a distance, more because she loved 
and was indebted to his wife than from moral scruples. 

“ I will read one passage : 

“ ‘ My darling ! you have studied my character to 
little purpose if you imagine that even for your dear 
sake, I would pain or wrong her to whom I have 
vowed constancy and love for a lifetime. Hers must 
ever be the chief chamber of my heart. It is her 
right, by every law human and divine. But, sweet 
one, a man’s is a dual nature, more complex than 
woman’s. Until I knew you, the deeps of mine had 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


349 


not been sounded. Your companionship brought a 
fullness of satisfaction, as the knowledge that you 
love me has brought a glory into my life unknown be- 
fore. I need you, and you need me. Heaven has 
made us as we are. It is folly to fight against destiny. 
By the love we bear one another, by our faith in and 
hope of that Heaven, I entreat you not to sell your- 
self to a man whose narrow soul can never mate itself 
with yours. The imagination madde7is me ! ’ 

“ It sounds flat-small-beerish to a third person," 
interpolated the reader, with a scornful little laugh. 
“ To save time and patience we will condense the rest. 
He goes on to propose a compromise, should she be 
still madly resolved on self-immolation. Let them 
have one blissfully-forgetful day all to themselves. If 
she will accept his escort on the morrow’s journey, 
they will, until her destination is reached feel and act 
and talk as if they had the whole, beautiful love-full 
world to themselves. V/ill forget care, sorrow, im- 
pending parting for a few golden hours. 

“ Then " — he continues — “ I swear solemnly to de- 
liver you to your relatives in Albany, without a mur- 
mur, and in so doing, to have done forever with the 
love-words and love-looks that make you miserable. 
While I know that it is a perverted sense of right and 
honor which causes you pain and remorse where I 
feel none, I bow to your will. Six hours is all I claim 
as my very own — utterly, freely, fully mine — out of 
the years you will spend with another. (I could curse 
the cold-blooded automaton when I write the words !) 

You will be as safe with me as in an angel’s arms. 
And what is my petition when you look dispassion- 


350 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


ately at it? A matter so natural and simple that 
Madeline would be the first to laugh at your 
scruples.” 

“ Stop there ! ” almost shouted the baited victim in 
a thick, coarse voice that did not belong to him, or to 
any gentleman. “Why do you go on with the infer- 
nal farce? You want your price for the stolen letter. 
What is it ?” 

His face was flushed, his glance dangerous. For 
awhile he had listened dully, like one smitten dumb 
and numb with horrified amazement. Now, the savage 
was aroused, and meant fight. 

Mrs. Lupton laughed again — the creamy gurgle of 
well-bred amusement. 

“‘Infernal’ and ‘stolen’ are not nice words, my 
dear Mr. Phelps. But you are right in one thing. I 
have my price. The day your daughter marries 
Hollis Lee, or anybody else than my husband’s son, 
I will burn this document in your sight. If you do 
not break off this ill-starred engagement, I shall make 
the whole affair so public that Rex Lupton would re- 
fuse at the very altar the daughter of the man who 
stole (to borrow your word) the affections of his 
promised bride, and would have eloped with her, had 
not death snatched her from his arms. Keep quiet ! ” 
authoritatively, as he started up with an oath of 
denial, — such fierce profanity as her delicate ear had 
never heard before. “ I shall not detain you much 
longer. I am no more fond of scenes than you, and 
want to hurry this one over. This letter would con- 
vict you in the mind of any man or woman of com- 
mon sense, of a deliberate design to run away with 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


351 


that girl. Men thirty-six years old, with families of 
their own, do not believe in such sublimated platonics, 
such whipped syllabub of sentiment as this letter ex- 
presses, if it means anything else than what I have 
said. If I do not have your written promise by to- 
morrow morning that this marriage shall be prevented 
by fair means or foul, Mrs. Phelps shall have the story 
and the papers by to-morrow noon. Should the en- 
gagement hold fast in spite of your opposition, — 
why, much as I should dislike to break with esteemed 
neighbors — I shall have no alternative ! 

I am not superstitious or pious — take them as 
synonyms, if you will — but I do believe in such Fate 
as warned me to keep these papers, as a hold upon 
Rex, should he ever be unmanageable, and a check 
upon your boundless, fatuous self-conceit. Then, 
too, I so disliked the girl that I would have struck 
her in her grave if she could have felt it. Altogether, 
something urged me to put away the letter and bide 
my time. It has come ! ” 

Dumb and desperate, he made a step towards her, 
glaring so wolfishly at the now folded sheet in her 
hand that she anticipated the impulse. 

“ Take it, if you would like to refresh your mem- 
ory ! ” with the same merciless laugh that had taunted 
him before. “ This is only a copy in my handwriting. 
I knew you too well, tnon ami, to trust the original 
within your reach. That is safe under lock and key, 
ready to tell the tale should you murder me in the 
hope of hushing up the scandal. And with it, the 
penciled reply from your inamorata for which you 
wrote you would wait in the library until midnight. 


352 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


There were but three lines, and they evidently did 
not quite please you, for you tore and twisted them 
into bits, and tossed them into your waste-paper 
basket. “ It shall be as you wish ! ” she said. “ I 
go to Albany in the noon train to-morrow. God 
pity us both, and forgive us if He can ! ” 

“ She sinned with both eyes open, poor wretch ! 
You drugged your conscience, — played the reputable 
sneak so effectively, even to yourself, the wonder is 
she did not despise you, instead of lowering her 
proud head to your bosom. But I do not compre- 
hend the vagaries of passion. I fancy that Mrs. 
Phelps would regard the episode from my standpoint, 
although I sincerely trust that you will not give me a 
pretext for testing the justice of my conjecture. The 
half-hour is up ! ” — glancing at ■ the clock. “ You 
have my ultimatum. I shall expect a note from you 
in due legal form, to-morrow. After that, we will 
await the success of your machinations ; keep our 
powder dry, and trust in your Providence and my 
Fate, the twin-powers that have kept your secret — 
with my help — for six years and more.” 

She arose with a little shake of her skirts that 
dropped them into sesthetic folds. Her mien was 
that of- the successful tragedian called before the cur- 
tain at the end of the play. Her lips were redder 
than their wont ; her eyes shone gloriously. To the 
wretched man before her, she was a beautiful devil, 
to whom his soul was pawned. In the abjectness of 
his misery, another vision arose before his sight, — 
the rose-pink glow of the library, with Salome stand- 
ing on the hearth, watching him with trustful eyes ; 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


353 


the dignified sweetness of the face his wife lifted to 
his kiss, the noble head and form framed by the tall- 
backed garnet chair. He could smell the perfume of 
the blazing cones, hear the hiss and bubble of the 
silver tea-kettle. 

“ You will not be gone long ! ” The words, partly- 
regretful, partly re-assuring, echoed in his brain with 
her gentle intonations. 

Had she known all, she would have bidden him go 
and never return. The public disgrace threatened by 
his inquisitor was as nothing in prospect, when set 
beside the lofty scorn of one pure, proud woman who 
loved him. 

He walked blindly to the door, moving and speak- 
ing as he had sometimes dreamed of doing in troubled 
sleep. On the threshold he turned with a glassy stare 
at the lovely chatelaine^ and the lovelier pictured 
countenance beyond her — the girl he had loved 
madly, and lost, and the love for her as well, in the 
weary weeks of fever and insensibility from which he 
had awakened with his eyes on Madeline’s face. Her 
lip curled, her eyes were full of sad disdain, as he met 
them. Had she come back from the grave he had 
never visited, to reproach him with the wreck he had 
made of her young life ? 

“You shall have the paper in the morning!” he 
said, weakly, his fingers fumbling with his moustache. 
“ I would write it to-night, but my head feels strange. 
I have had a trying day ! a very trying day ! ” 

In another minute, she heard the front door close 
behind him. 

She, too, was weary, but so far content with her 


554 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


evening’s work that she could afford to rest. She 
shut the leaves of the tabernacle, locked them, and 
drew the screen before the window. As she did it, 
she smiled a little. 

“ I shall get up quite an affection for you, my dear 
Marion, if you do me a few more good turns,” she 
murmured. 

Consistent to her principle of taking nobody into 
confidence, she carried easel and portrait back to 
Rex’s chamber, making two trips to do it. The tab- 
ernacle was a heavy weight for slight arms, but she 
had brought it down, and knew that she could manage 
it. On the last journey she paid her stated nightly 
visit to the nursery, and to Gerald’s room. The 
younger children were sound asleep. They had her 
nerves and conscience, and slumbered like night- 
gowned cherubs. 

Gerald had made no move toward retiring. His 
mother heard him, at her tap on the panels, push his 
chair back hurriedly, and entered promptly to find 
him tearing off his coat. A heap of school-exercises 
and lesson-books was on the table, and from beneath 
them peeped the purple cover of a flashy novel. 

“ My dear son ! ” exclaimed the dulcet voice, 
“do you hear the clock striking nine? You must 
not study so late. A brain as active as this ” — strok- 
ing his forehead — “ needs at least, ten hours’ sleep 
when the owner is under twenty. Go to bed — there's 
a blessed boy ! Good-night ! ” 

By and by, when she was sure he would be asleep, 
she would steal in and purloin the bad book, and he 
would not dare inquire what had become of it, know- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


355 


ing who the thief must be. She believed in espionage 
as devoutly as did Madame Beck of the Rue Fossette 
in “ Villette,” and made surveillance do the work of 
maternal precepts in the management of her off- 
spring. 

After kissing her eldest hope again, and more ten- 
derly, she glided down the staircase, humming as she 
moved, her “ second-best favorite ” — 

“ O, love fora year, a week, a day ! 

But, alas for the love that loves alway ! ” 

The rain increased in weight as the evening ad- 
vanced. Now and then, she raised her head from 
^‘John Inglesant,” to enjoy the patter and rush of 
the showers that waxed into a flood. The touch of 
mysticism, the quaint, unworldly spirit of the seven- 
teenth century novel, interested and soothed her. It 
was like a diet of wholesome brown bread and fresh 
butter after a surfeit of fruit-cake, for she had read a 
good deal of trash lately, to the detriment of her 
intellectual digestion. 

The cannel coal puffed and sighed and flickered in 
the grate ; the amber ^curtains shut her in from dis- 
respectful draughts. Occasionally, she let her book 
rest on her knee, closed upon a taper finger that bore 
a wonderful opal defended by diamonds. Behind her, 
the silver-and-gray swallows sailed against the leaf- 
brown background that might be an oak-coppice in 
October. She was thinking over what she had read — 
and other things. Nothing, however, that clouded 
her passive visage, or made the great eyes anything 
but limpid. She enjoyed her own society too much 


3'56 A GALLAA^T FIGHT. 

to be lonely in such luxurious solitude as this, and 
to-night she had earned her modest recreation. 

Eleven silvery strokes from the mantel-clock re- 
minded her that she was losing her beauty-sleep. 
Before the chime died away, the door-bell rang. The 
servants had locked shutters and outer doors at half- 
past ten, but Maggie presently ran down from the 
third story, and knocked at the library-door. 

“ Will you see anybody, mem ? ” 

“ Certainly ! if it is any one who has a right to ask 
for me. It is probably a note or'telegram.” 

Nothing from without could touch her very nearly, 
her little ones being safely folded under her roof. 
She hearkened, therefore, with curiosity unmixed 
with anxiety, as she heard a man’s voice speak to the 
maid.' The first sentence, — from 'the inflection, an 
inquiry — was muffled by the rain-fall. An exclama- 
tion followed the servant’s reply. 

Are you sure ? ” 

“ Yes sir. Mrs. Lupton is by herself in the library.” 

“ Ask if I can speak with her for a moment. Mr. 
Hollis Lee ! ” 

He blinked confusedly when ushered into the 
lighted room, the outer darkness being dense. 

“ I beg your pardon for this untimely call ! ” with 
a rapid look about the apartment. “ But I have been 
waiting for two hours at Mr. Phelps’s house, to see 
him on important business, and Mrs. Phelps thought 
he might be here.” 

“ He was, for perhaps half-an-hour. He left before 
nine o’clock — I supposed to go home.” 

Maggie, loitering in the hall with the instinct of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 357 

her class for a possible sensation, here presented her- 
self in the library doorway, a hat in her hand. 

“ Please mem, Mr. Phelps’s been an’ gone an’ for- 
got his hat when he went out. Leastways, here’s his 
name in this one a-standin’ on the rack. An’ bless 
an’ save us all ! if here ain’t his umbrella besides ! ” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


M rs. RUFUS LEE had been very ill all that day 
and evening. Distress, anxiety, the wearing 
thought that her momentary indiscretion, magnified 
by her tender conscience into an ebullition of temper, 
might impair her husband’s usefulness, and would 
probably compel him to seek another pastorate, handi- 
capped by the stigma of “something wrong in his last 
field ” — wrought upon the somewhat fragile frame 
until she was prostrated by nervous headache and 
fever. 

Anna Marcy was a staff of strength in these sorrow- 
ful days at the parsonage. Helpful, sanguine, and 
sympathetic, she was the parents’ counsellor, the 
children’s playfellow and custodian, and Hollis’s 
confidante. Salome complained that she saw so much 
less of her than she had anticipated, and had shebeen 
less compassionate for the persecuted, distraught 
household, would have rebelled openly against Anna’s 
incessant preoccupation. As her friend could not 
come often to her, the girl, with the dangerous parti- 
sanship of youth, went daily and openly to the Lees. 
Flowers, fruit, books, carriage and horses were at the 
service of her new acquaintance. The children fell in 
love with her, and she gladly assisted Anna in reliev- 
ing the overtaxed mother of their society and demands, 
whenever she could beguile them away from her. 

358 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


359 


That Mrs. Fitchett made capital of all this had not 
occurred to either of the friends as a possibility, until 
the relict stopped them one morning as they were 
getting into the wide, low phaeton with the two elder 
babies. Lunch-baskets were stowed under the seat, 
and their destination was a pleasant picnic ground a 
couple of miles out of town. 

“ So you two Chinamese twins is off together 
again’ ! ” said the widow, with a wicked giggle. 
“Folks is a-talkin’ consid’rable about how the elegent 
Miss Phelps takes Mrs. Lee’s nurse-girl out a-ridin’ 
every day. They ’spose, maybe, it’s on a’count of her 
bein’ too corpulient for t’ walk fur.” 

The same story percolated through innumerable 
strata of gossip to Mr. Lee’s ears, and he forbade 
future airings for the little ones. Stout-hearted Anna 
cared not a rush for ridicule and malice when she was 
the only target. She had cast out divers anchors to 
windward in the shape of letters to friends who had 
ecclesiastical influence, besides privately arranging 
with her mother for an asylum in their home for 
Ethel and the babies, should Rufus be driven again 
to candidating. 

On this particular night she fed, bathed and put 
the children to bed, took the doctor’s orders and 
executed them for the relief of the sick woman, and 
had the comfort of seeing her sink into profound 
slumber about eleven o’clock. 

A basket of mending had been neglected during 
the house-mother’s illness, and this her deputy 
abstracted and carried down to the back parlor, the 
living-room of the frugal household. She was sur- 


360 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


prised to find Mr. Lee there. He wore a shabby 
dressing-gown ; his hair was rumpled by the restless 
fingers he had ploughed it with, while trying to study ; 
an open book was in his hand, but he was not reading. 

“ Come in ! ” he said, rising to place a chair for her 
by the centre-table and lamp. ‘‘ I left my study half 
an hour ago, and came down to Ethel's room, but 
seeing you busy with her, would not disturb you. 1 
can neither read nor write nor think to-night. There 
was a joint meeting of Standing and Parish Com- 
mittees in the church this evening, to which I was not 
invited. I suppose my fate was decided by the con- 
clave, and I half-hoped — I could notask it — that some 
friend would call in to tell me what was done. I 
begin — Heaven help me ! — to fear that an unpopular 
pastor has no friends outside of his own home. I 
have labored diligently among this people ; have 
stood at the bedside of their sick and dying ; have 
buried their dead and baptized their children. I can 
truly say that “ in all their afflictions I was afflicted," 
and was a partaker in all their joys. I loved them, 
and believed that they loved me. Yet in one short 
fortnight all is changed, and through no fault or short, 
coming of mine. Now — ‘ none is so poor as to show me 
reverence.’ Every man’s hand is against me ; every 
foot lifted to lend me a kick down-hill. That is the 
way of the world, and, it would seem, of the church.” 

“ In this God-forsaken hamlet — perhaps ! ” rejoined 
Anna, snipping at the frayed edges of Bessie’s flannel 
skirt. “ Which is but a tiny scrap of the world, a 
mere shred of the fringe on the garment of human- 
ity. I am thankful that something is likely to remove 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


35i 

you to a better place, even if it takes the form of a 
social earthquake. Things always pull straight after 
awhile. We have Scripture-warrant for that.” 

“ If it were not for my wife and babes ! ” mused 
the poor man of God. He had enough of the pastoral 
cant to say, “ babes ” and “ lambs.” “ But for them 
I should have no solicitude ; would ask to-morrow 
for dismission from the care of a church that has 
requited my labors so basely. There are always fields 
open for the occupancy of single men.” 

“ Ethel flew at me like an infuriated sucking-dove 
yesterday, when I said that all clergymen should be 
vowed to celibacy,” remarked Anna demurely, the 
needle relieving the scissors. “ I told her that St. 
Paul implied as much in wishing to have his disciples 
‘without carefulness,’ and that he commended his 
own example to other apostles. If you had been 
ministering in the sanctuary, instead of being bidden 
with your wife to serve Mrs. Fitchett’s tea-table, this 
row would not have come about. Ethel — sweet, un- 
offending saint ! is the disturbing element — not you. 
She and the babies are the clogs that hinder you from 
shaking the dust of Freehold from your feet to-mor- 
row. And your flock — generous Christians that they 
are ! — are aware of your dilemma. The Roman Cath- 
olic clergy are in the right on this point.” 

“ I am astounded to hear such sentiments from the 
mouth of a Protestant womaft!” broke forth the di- 
vine, and wily Anna’s end was gained. 

He loved argument better than the meat that 
perisheth, better than rumination upon his own woes. 
The monstrous heresy so shamelessly enunciated 


362 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


must be combated. In relating the occurence in 
happier days, Anna declared that, under the fusillade 
of authorities, illustrations, demonstration and ex- 
hortation poured upon her, she could think of noth- 
ing but — 

‘ ‘ They sought him with thimbles, they sought him with care, 
They pursued him with forks and with hope ; 

They threatened his life with a railway share. 

They soothed him with smiles and with soap.” 

She stitched on serenely through the harangue, 
maintaining enough of unsanctified incredulity in 
smile and shrug to keep him up to his work. When 
he had talked himself breathless, and away from the 
dreaded “conclave,” he noticed her occupation. 

“ You ought not to be doing that ! You are wear- 
ing yourself away to — ” He shut his mouth with a 
gasp. 

“To skin and bone? True enough ! But I am 
fond of skeletons and cuticle, you see. At present, 
I am only amusing myself with these odds and ends 
until I see whether or not Ethel awakes at twelve 
o’clock for her medicine. Unless she does, I am not 
to disturb her. You ought to be in bed, however. 
Hollis has come in, I suppose ? ” 

“No. He is not in his room. Did he say where 
he was going to-night ? ” 

“ To see Mr. Phelps on business,” dryly. “ He 
seldom stays so late there, or anywhere else, for that 
matter. He may have been obliged to go to the 
office after his call.” 

“ It may be that I am laying too much stress upon 
Mr. Phelps’s aid and comfort in this unfortunate 


A GALLAIVT FIGHT, 


363 


affair,” resumed the pastor, after a pause. “ But it 
would seem that the addition of so influential a parish- 
ioner to the society might, when it is understood that 
I have drawn him to the church, mollify measurably 
the general irritation.” 

Anna’s lips parted impulsively, then closed with- 
out a word. Let the educated slave of illiterate des- 
pots express what balm he could from the hope that 
the spiritual influence of wealth and position might 
be a tree of healing to the bitter waters beside which 
he was sowing in tears. The whole framework of the 
pastoral relation was too far out of plumb for her to 
rectify so much as a single beam. She sewed on but- 
tons and tapes, relieving her feelings somewhat by 
jerking energetically upon each when it was fast ; 
listening meantime, not without uneasiness, for the 
click of Hollis’s key in the door. 

The rain fell in torrents ; the choked gutters gur- 
gled and ran over in sheets and splashes ; the fireless 
room was growing chilly. Cannel coal and birchen 
logs and aesthetic pine-cones were not used as fuel in 
the parsonage. The heating of the ugly Latrobe in 
the dining-room under the front parlor was postponed 
as late in the season as was consistent with health 
and comfort. Coal was dear in Freehold, and the 
society knew just how many tons could be made to 
warm the minister’s house during the long., tedious 
winter. Anna’s feet and hands were cold ; the breath 
of her cousin-in-law showed in thin vapor, as he con- 
tinued to make talk, but neither spoke of remitting 
the vigil till twelve o’clock struck, and still no Hollis 
appeared. Their glances met uneasily. 


3^4 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


“ Don’t you suppose — ” Anna began cheerily. 

The feeble tinkle of the door-bell was an electric 
shock to both. Anna was upon the clergyman’s heels 
as he drew back the bolt in agitated haste. 

Good evening, Mr. Le-e-e ! ” said a voice between 
chattering teeth. 

“ Mr. Phelps ! ” in extreme astonishment. “ Walk 
in, sir ! " 

Anna could not wait for civilities. 

“What has happened?” said she, eagerly, but 
guardedly, mindful of the sleeping patient upstairs. 
“ Where is Hollis ? ” 

The visitor was drenched and dripping ; bare- 
headed, his hair streaming with rain and plastered to 
his head, hung about a haggard face. He was more 
like a drunken tramp, with his bleared eyes, faltering 
tongue and skulking gait than the gallant, gracious 
gentleman who had presented himself in the Lupton 
library less than four hours before. 

“ Hollis ! ” he said, hollowly. “ I don’t know. I 
haven’t seen him. I — am not— well, Mr. Lee ! I be- 
lieve I have had — something— like a chill. Ugh ! ” 
shaking from head to foot as his host led him into the 
parlor. “ And I had — an — idea ! It is gone now” — 
with a weak, foolish laugh — “ but there was a — mat- 
ter — of some — importance — about which — I ought — 
I came e^xpressly — to consult you — as a good man — 
and my pastor. O, yes ! as my pastor, you know ! 
Of course ! of course ! ” 

Pie fell to shivering anew, and passed from articu- 
late incoherence to odd mumblings, his head drooping 
on his chest, his body “ slumping ” helplessly togethe<5' 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


365 


in the chair where they had put him. Mr. Lee chafed 
his hands, which were like soaked clay ; Anna ran for 
brandy and hot water. Mr. Lee met her in the hall 
when she brought them. 

“ He has been drinking already ! ” he whispered. 
‘‘ His breath tells that. But he must have more, or 
he will be in a state of collapse. What can it 
mean ? ” 

Never was sound more welcome to waiting ears 
than the rattling key in the lock of the door behind 
them. Hollis was pale and excited, muddy up to the 
knees, damp all over. 

“ I ran in to say that I may not get home again 
before morning ! ” he began, talking very fast. “ Mr. 
Phelps went out for half an hour this evening. At 
eight o’clock. And has not come back. I have been 
walking the streets for an hour. Eh ! what ? ” at 
length perceiving the frantic gestures that tried to 
check him. 

He pressed into the parlor before them, knelt be- 
side the palsied, crouching form, and spoke in his 
ringing young voice : 

“ Mr. Phelps ! dear friend ! I am so thankful to 
find you ! They are terribly anxious about you at 
home. Brandy and water, hot — is it, Anna? Just 
the thing for you, sir ! You have taken cold, and are 
thoroughly chilled. There ! that will set you up ! ” 
as the potion was greedily swallowed. “ Now, Anna, 
get shawls — blankets — something to wrap him up in, 
while I run for a carriage. We must get him home 
without wasting one minute ! ” 

He had knocked up the men at a livery-stable on 


366 


A GALLANT LTGHT. 


the next block ; helped them get in the horses, and 
was back in eight minutes by the clock to which 
Anna’s gaze turned every other second after her 
charge was wrapped in shawls, and a blanket was 
ready to throw about him when he should be put in the 
coach. He had not spoken distinctly since Hollis’s 
arrival, but he did not shiver except at intervals, and, 
she feared, would fall asleep before they could get 
him off. The brothers supported him to the carriage ; 
the driver ceased to growl at being “ drug out o’ bed 
on sech a devilish-bad night,” when he saw the limp 
figure, and lent active help in lifting him into the 
vehicle. The door was slammed, awakening sharp 
reverberations in the rain-washed street ; the wheels 
rumbled away up the hill. 

Anna was left alone in a chaos, of fears and con- 
jectures. Thoughts of bed and sleep were folly. She 
stole up to Edith’s chamber and found her still slum- 
bering sweetly ; then, back to the parlor to wait for 
the brothers and news from her friends. The work- 
basket and pile of mended clothing on the table ; the 
book Mr. Lee had laid down ; a few shreds on the 
carpet — were tokens of their vigil and waiting. But 
for the blotches of wet on the floor, and muddy foot- 
prints here and there, and the emptied glass redolent 
of spirits, she might have dreamed the rest, so incon- 
gruous was it with ail she had seen and heard of 
Richard Phelps, the flattered child of fortune, yet so 
generous in the distribution of her goods to others as 
to disarm envious Fate. 

Sorrow and Salome ! The words would not fit to- 
gether in the mind of the friend, whose loving admira- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


367 


tion of the bright, joyous creature was a passion. In 
the chill, plainly furnished room, her hearing strained 
for returning footsteps, she lapsed into musings— she 
could not have told how or why — of the May-day 
when Rex Lupton found them together in the balsam- 
grove, — the afternoon when Salome finished the 
sketch of “ The Maiden’s Hand,” and her vivacious 
prattle filled ear and heart with music. 

The reverie lasted until the step of one man on the 
flooded sidewalk and halting at the door prepared 
her to hear that Hollis had remained at the Phelps 
Place, while his brother sent the carriage for the fam- 
ily physician, and walked home. 

“ Mrs. Lupton was with mother and daughter — a 
ministering angel ! ” the pastor reported, feelingly. 
‘‘ Mr. Phelps was quite unconscious when we got 
him home. His wife was fearfully white, but brave 
and collected. She and Salome went upstairs with us. 
Mrs. Lupton, with characteristic delicacy, kept in the 
background. She met me in the hall on my way 
out, and we had ten minutes’ talk. A most charming 
woman ! full of sense and feeling ! She stated that 
Mr. Phelps had a wild, unsettled look while discuss- 
ing some business matters with her — an affair in 
which she needed legal advice — and once or twice 
put his hand to his forehead in pain or bewilderment. 
He also told her, as he was going away, that his head 
‘ felt strange,’ and that he ‘ had had a trying day — a 
very trying day ! ’ 

“ Coupling this with a remark he made to his wife 
that his business-trip had ‘ taken more out of him than 
he knew until he put into harbor/ there remains little 


368 


A GALLANT FLGHT. 


doubt that return to the active duties of his profession 
after his long rest has been too much for nerves that 
probably have never been quite normal in condition 
since the terrible accident that nearly cost him his life 
and reason. Mrs. Lupton regretted, with true womanly 
sympathy, that her library in which the consultation 
took place was very warm from a soft-coal fire kindled 
to expel the dampness. She fears that the change to 
rain and cold without may have induced congestion of 
the lungs. The danger, she apprehends, from the fact 
that the seizure took the form of a chill, is pneumonia — 
a fearful scourge in this climate. She will stay there 
all night, which will be an unspeakable comfort to the 
afflicted family. One seldom meets with so clear a head 
united to so warm a heart.” 

“ Was the business affair they discussed agitating ?” 
asked practical Anna. 

‘‘ I thought of that, but she replied promptly that it 
ought not to have excited him. It was a simple ques- 
tion of bargain and sale. She had read some papers 
to him in evidence of former transactions, to which he 
listened attentively and intelligently and promised to 
send her a properly worded deed of transfer in the 
morning. It was in this connection that he spoke of 
the strange feeling in his head. It is a sad, sad affair! 
Ah, well ! we see that wealth and popularity do not 
insure man against sorrow ! ” 

The next day, and many other morrows, brought no 
elucidation of the mystery. The bar-tender of a liquor 
saloon in one of the most disreputable quarters of the 
ultra-moral town came forward with the testimony 
that Mr. Phelps had entered his place about eleven 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


369 


o’clock, wet to the skin, and hatless, and asked gruffly 
for a “drink to keep out the Cursed cold.” He knew 
Richard Phelps well by sight, as did everybody in Free- 
hold, and was surprised to see him in such a plight. 
But it was none of his business to make remarks upon 
his customer’s looks and behavior. He served the 
gentleman with brandy, and he tossed off a glassful, 
raw — threw down his money and walked off a little 
“ g^^oggy ” in the knees, it seemed to him. No ! he 
had not thought of “ trying to detain him, and send- 
ing word to his friends.” 

“ Bless your life, Mr. Lee ! ” Hollis being the in- 
terlocutor — “ when you’ve been in the trade ’s long ’s 
me, ’s boy ’n’ man, you’ll learn to hold your tongue ’n’ 
not to be s’prised ’t nothin’, without it’s somethin’ as 
isn't shady !” 

On the second day of Mr. Phelps’s illness, Rex 
Lupton arriving at the railway station from New York 
was met before he had gone ten steps from the train 
by the ubiquitous Tom Johnston, who turned about and 
walked six blocks out of his way with the new-comer 
purposely to enjoy the effect of the latest sensation 
upon the fresh soil of an unprepared mind. 

“You ain’t heard the news ! ” was his ejaculation at 
the outset. “ I want to know ! Why man alive ! it’s in 
all the papers ! The Freehold Landjnark give a hull 
page with han’some headin’s to it this mornin,’ ’n 
The Springfield Republican hed a real tasty note on it 
alludin’ t’ “ Richard Phelps, a prominent ’n’ wealthy 
citterzin i’ th’ thrivin’ town o’ Freehold.” The Repub- 
lican always pet tern izes us a leetle.^ you know ! I say 
it’s out o’ clear jealousy.” 


370 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“ What has happened to Mr. Phelps ? ” demanded 
Rex curtly. His feature? had taken on a pallor and 
rigidity which is the New England evidence of power- 
ful emotion. They did not relax or flush, while he 
heard the distorted tale of the prominent “ citter- 
zin’s ” wandering through the storm, and the critical 
state in which he now lay. 

“ It’s an all-fired good card for Passon Lee ! ” inter- 
polated the masculine gossip. “ He’s come out noble 
on this round. He ’n’ his brother stan’ t’it that 
Phelps come t’ his house o’ his own will ’n’ accord, but 
there’s them what b’lieves they picked him up, wet’s a 
drown’ rat ’n’ drunk ’s a lord, out o’ th’ gutter, ’n’ has 
boun’ themselves togetherto hush up th’ truth. Young 
Lee, he’s a-nussin’ of him b’ day ’n’ night ; ’n’ I do 
s’pose he never had a job more t’ his mind, seen’ he’s 
a goin’ t’ marry the daughter — ” 

“ Hi, there ! ” shouted Rex to a passing hack, and 
before Tom Johnston could gulp another — “ I want 
t’ know ! ” the usually imperturbable young fellow had 
thrown himself and valise into the carriage, and was 
tearing up the street. 

“ The Phelps Place ! as fast as you can go ! ” was 
his impetuous command. 

The fever that had driven the chill out of the sick 
man’s veins ran higher than ever on this afternoon. 
As Mrs. Lupton had prognosticated, pneumonia was 
the result of the wet night’s work. A Boston physi- 
cian, summoned by telegraph, was in consultation 
with the local practitioner in the upper chamber. 
Salome, walking the drawing-room restlessly, was 
unfitted by suspenseful agony for speech or con- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


371 


nected thought. Hollis Lee stood at a window with 
Anna Marcy, both too much occupied in watching the 
figure that went back and forth between them and the 
end of the apartment, to keep up a pretence of con- 
versation. Mrs. Lupton, pale and abstracted with 
dark rings under her eyes, lay back in an easy-chair 
with folded hands and half-closed eyelids. She was, 
in truth, fearfully anxious and keenly alive to the im- 
portance of the imperilled life to the stability of her 
schemes. 

If I had but insisted upon having a written pro- 
test against the marriage before he left me that 
night ! ” was the burden of her present meditations ; 
“ it would have the force of a death-bed injunc- 
tion.” 

She was not prone to blunder, but she had made 
several grievous mistakes in the conduct of this in- 
trigue. She saw them clearly, and belabored herself 
more severely for them than any other critic could have 
had the heart to do, had he seen her, now, — languid, 
colorless, a prey to such sympathy in her friends’ dis- 
tress as wears upon the spirit with the weight of a 
personal grief. 

To begin very far back— she was short-sighted not 
to keep the original of the copied epistle, instead of 
yielding to the womanish desire of stabbing to the 
heart her who had made the match between Marion 
Bayard and Rex Lupton, and who was so insolently 
secure in the consciousness of her husband’s fidelity 
and her friends’ devotion. Had the plotter forecast 
the unlikely complication of the second betrothal and 
the circumstances that made it disastrous, while the 


372 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


first was only distasteful, to herself, she would never 
have parted with her best weapon of defence. It 
was a stupid blunder, furthermore, since the duller- 
witted wife had evidently, with her high-flown, 
mediaeval notions of generosity and honor, destroyed 
unread the sealed envelope deposited in Marion’s 
drawer. Months of keenest scrutiny and tests of 
finest ingenuity had brought the diploiiiate^ with bitter 
reluctance, to accept this inference. Without the 
slightest desire in her cool, critical soul to divert his 
caresses to herself, the fascinating widow never saw 
Richard Phelps kiss or pet his wife, and marked the 
answering love in the matronly face, flushing under 
his tenderness, that she did not experience a sense of 
actual injury and repress with difficulty the inclina- 
tion to proclaim the truth, arraigning one as a hypo- 
crite, the other as a dupe. She used at these times, 
to despise the wife almost as much as she did the hus- 
band; to sing of the latter in her heart as — 

“ Douglas ! Douglas ! tender and w/ztrue ! 

She took whimsical pleasure, when very much 
wrought up, in humming the line half-articulately, in 
Madeline’s hearing. The ways and thoughts of these 
large, slow natures irked her unconscionably. She 
had told no lie more glibly to Richard Phelps than 
that of her fondness for his wife. 

Still — for she was many leagues short of despond- 
ency — the copy had served her purpose up to date 
reasonably well, and she held the restored pencilled 
note in Marion’s handwriting — an undoubted original 
— to substantiate her report of the interview in which 
the father had pledged his word that his girl should 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


373 


not marry Reginald Lupton’s son. Should Mrs. 
Phelps be left a widow, she would surely sacrifice her 
daughter’s present (imaginary) good for the protec- 
tion of her dead husband’s name. Scenes were inevi- 
table with her — with Salome, and with Rex, — but let 
them come ! 

Isabel was not thinking so easily and clearly as was 
common with her — she discovered just here. Two 
sleepless nights and days of ceaseless anxiety had 
used up more cellular tissue than she could spare, 
and be her equable, ever-ready self. To-night she 
would go to bed like a selfish, sensible heathen, and 
recuperate her forces by great, full draughts of bond 
fide slumber, such as came obediently at her call. 
Rex was not expected home until to-morrow, — thank 
heaven ! 

The sharp rattle and scrape of wheels on the drive 
made the two at the window lean forward to peer out 
between the curtains, and Anna said, involuntarily : 

“ It is Mr. Lupton, Salome ! ” 

The girl was half-way up the room in her restless 
promenade as the words reached her. With a low, 
thrilling cry, she sprang forward and met her lover in 
the door of the drawing-room. Forgetful of lookers- 
on — of maidenly reserve — of everything except that 
here was strength on which her fainting heart could 
lay hold — love, comfort, calm ! — she cast herself upon 
his breast. 

“ Rex ! Oh, my darling ! Thank God you have 
come at last ! ” ^ 

He caught her in his arms and bowed his tall head 
to kiss her in a mute transport of fondest compassion. 


374 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT, 


With a jerk that wrenched off the fastening, Hollis 
tore open the two-leaved French windows, and darted 
through, Anna following. The boy was livid with 
pain and rage. He threw up his arms to warn her 
back, retreating to the vine-recessed end of the colon- 
nade. As loth to witness his paroxysm of horror and 
disappointment as he was to be seen, Anna ran around 
the corner of the house, regaining the hall through 
the back-door, and met Mrs. Phelps at the foot of the 
stairs. 

The lady was wan and heavy-eyed, yet, as she had 
been throughout the crucial period, composed in de- 
meanor. 

“ I want Salome, my dear ; where is she ? ” 

Anna rested her fluttering breast against the balus- 
trade, and tried to breathe regularly. 

“ She is in there, Mrs. Phelps ! ” with a backward 
wave of the hand. “ Will not I do ?" 

“ No, thank you ! The doctors are still upstairs, 
and I cannot be spared long. I must speak to her 
for an instant.” 

The brief dialogue went on in the subdued key 
learned in the sick-chamber, and Mrs. Phelps passed 
forward to the door of the drawing-room, where 
she was transfixed by the sight of the group 
within. 

Salome, still in the firm embrace of Rex’s left arm, 
had hidden her eyes on his shoulder, trembling like a 
wind-tossed leaf. He, drawn up to his full height, 
the marble mask of his face wearing its coldest and 
haughtiest expression, confronted his step-mother. 
She, too, was on her feet, but the languid lines of 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


375 


shape and visage were the same as when she had lain 
back in the chair ; her voice was lazily insolent. She 
even smiled slightly in speaking. 

“ I doubt it, I repeat, and I shall wait for other 
proof than this pretty little scene — well put together 
as it is ! ” 

Salome would have started away from her shelter 
but for the firmer hold that kept her there. The part 
of the cheek that was visible, with her ear and neck, 
was hot scarlet. 

And / repeat,” said Rex, in accents like flint, 
“ that this is my betrothed wife, let who will dispute 
it. This is extraordinary conduct, Isabel ! ” 

“ Not extra-or-di-na-ry ! ” with the faintest possible 
indication of mimicry of his somewhat precise enun- 
ciation, — “ when I recollect that her father told me, 
not three days ago, that she should never marry you 
with his consent.” 

“ I think—” 

“At her mother’s voice, Salome broke away and 
fled to her ; hands outstretched and eyes dilating — 

“ Mamma ! Mamma ! can that be true ? ” 

“ Hush, my child ! I think — ” turning to the oth- 
ers, features and voice dignified and calm, — “ there 
has been enough of this for the present. This is not 
a time for explanation or denial. Salome ! come with 
me ! You can wait in the library, Rex. I will send 
her to you soon.” 

Left to herself tjy the sudden intervention of 
acknowledged authority, Mrs. Lupton walked deliber- 
ately to the long mirror between the windows, and 
regarded her image attentively. At first, sedately. 


376 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


then with the wide, feline smile creasing the cheeks 
in which the color rose gradually. 

“ A question of identity ! ” she laughed behind her 
teeth. Did she put me down ? Yet this looks like 
myself ! ” 

Gathering up her wraps from the hall-table as she 
passed, she betook herself to her own abode, pausing 
on the drive for a minute’s chat with Rufus Lee, who 
was just coming up to inquire as to the result of the 
medical consultation. 

‘‘You would better step into the library and wait,” 
she said suavely. “ I know this is what Mrs. Phelps 
would wish. You will, probably, find your brother 
there. He was here a minute ago. Mrs. Phelps will 
be down after a while. She was wishing to-day that 
you would call.” 

Without doubt or scruple the pastor tiptoed 
through the hall, pushed back the library door which 
was slightly ajar, and found himself in the presence 
of Mr. Rex Lupton, who, from the change in his 
countenance as he wheeled about to meet him, had 
evidently expected somebody else. 

“A playful pat of the paw — that needless bit of 
mischief ! ” said our intriguante^ wending her way to 
the lower level of her domain. “ It would have been 
more complete if I could have hidden behind the door 
and heard them make talk until the love-smitten dam- 
sel entered. The divine will stand his ground as I 
advised as stupidly and more coolly than Casabl- 
anca.” 

Almost restored to equanimity by the appreciation 
of the comic aspect of the suggested situation, she did 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


377 


not turn her shapely head far enough to see another 
couple “ making talk,” but out-of-doors. If she had, 
the spectacle of her son and Anna Marcy walking 
together in the rose-garden would not have diverted 
her cogitations from the graver matters on hand. 

Hollis was late to supper that evening. 

Detained at the office ! ” he said, briefly, when his 
brother inquired if he had “ come directly from the 
hill ? ” 

He looked ill and cross, and ate nothing, gulping 
down two cups of strong tea in total silence. 

“ Do you watch again to-night ? ” inquired Mr. Lee, 
as consequential and pachydermatous as even the 
best clergymen can be sometimes. 

He was not insensible to the worldly advantage of 
the augmenting intimacy between his family and that 
of the “prominent citizen,” at this juncture. The 
service he had rendered Richard Phelps in restoring 
him to his family and the ensuing gratitude of wife 
and children were factors in the sum of his fate. 
His name had “ got into the papers ” in this flattering 
connection, and the Old North Hill felt a glow of 
reflected distinction. People spoke to him with more 
respect, and several disaffected parishioners had put 
themselves to the trouble of crossing the street to 
question him as to the incidents of his nocturnal 
adventure. Rufus Lee was a good man, and a sincere, 
but the clerical eye must note the trend of straws on 
the stream of public favor that — however other pro- 
fessioi\s may presume to disregard it — signifies to 
the wedded divine starvation or honorable subsis- 


tence. 


37 ^ 


A GALL A ATT FIGHT, 


‘‘ No. I am not needed. I brought work home 
that will keep me up until midnight, and later.” 

He had not asked after Ethel, although Anna still 
sat behind the tea-tray in her stead. His brother’s 
eye followed him to the closing door. 

“ Poor boy ! ” he sighed, but not anxiously. “ He 
is tired out, and naturally feels great solicitude. The 
death of his best friend would be a crushing blow in 
a business point of view, as well as from a sentimental. 
Dr. Clymer told me, as we walked down the hill 
together this evening, that he regarded the chances of 
life and death as evenly balanced, with, to quote his 
own words, “a slight tilt on the wrong side.” He 
considers Mrs. Phelps as a heroine, a model wife and 
true woman. She is fortunate in having Mrs. Lupton 
as a next-door neighbor. I wish her step-son would 
study urbanity in her school. His deportment to me 
this afternoon was peculiarly offensive, — a sort of 
haughty indifference very unbecoming in a young 
man’s intercourse with one in my profession. And, 
in the circumstances, meeting, as we did, under the 
roof of a parishioner who does not hesitate to declare 
herself under obligations to me, and in whose family 
members of mine are received as intimate friends, I 
could not but think it in wretched taste, to say the 
least.” 

Anna hearkened and held her peace. Her cousin- 
in-law’s perfunctoriness and continual magnifying of 
his office — as borne by himself — wore upon her pa- 
tience at times. She made fresh tea and carried it up 
to Ethel with cream-toast prepared by herself, the 
parsonage maid-of-all-work not being strong on 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


379 


dainty cookery. Her preoccupation in the task ac- 
counted to Ethel’s husband for her taciturnity. The 
possibility most remote from his logical mind was that 
he could bore the clear-eyed damsel — or anybody 
else. 

People take it for granted that fat people can not 
be romantic or heroic without making themselves 
ludicrous. There is really no coarsening or clouding 
influence in adipose tissue evenly distributed over 
the human frame, that we should invariably associate 
it with mere jollity or with dull phlegm. Yet music- 
lovers sigh over Campanini’s growing girth, and 
smile when Brignoli warbles love-songs in a sweeter 
lark-like tenor than ever issued from thinly encased 
lungs ; — and Falstaff as a lover is not amusing because 
of the incongruity of character with that of toper, 
braggart and coward, but because he weighs fifteen 
stone. 

“ He is fat and scant of breath ! ” (and, presumably, 
perspiring) the queen gives as her excuse for offer- 
ing her handkerchief to Hamlet. But when did 
Booth or Irving risk the sentence of reductio ad 
absurdum by padding “ to the part ” ? 

The girl who, as the clock struck eleven, carried to 
Hollis Lee’s door a cup of steaming chocolate she had 
brewed after the servant had gone to bed, was as fine 
of soul, as deep of heart, as loyal and as poetic as if 
her beautiful hands had been able to span her waist. 
She moved lightly for one of her weight, and never 
lunged or lurched in walking. Hollis was first made 
aware of her approach by her knock and gentle call. 

“ I have brought up a little lunch for you,” she said, 


380 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


when he opened the door. You must not study late 
unless you eat supper." 

His care-lined face nearly deprived her of courage 
to add, after he thanked her and took the tray — 

“ There is something I want to tell you when you 
can give me five minutes. You will find me in the 
back parlor alone. Your brother is in his study." 

Absorbed in his own affairs as he was, her manner 
aroused within him a sufficiently lively degree of inter- 
est in the “ something " to take him downstairs as 
soon as the lunch was disposed of. He was fond of 
Anna in a way. They had been comrades for years, 
and he had much respect for her quick perception and 
sound sense. Ethel had resigned more than one dear 
hope during the late summer and early autumn, hopes 
she had never confided even to Rufus. 

Anna was sewing as usual, hemming a set of table- 
napkins that were to surprise Ethel when she came 
downstairs. They were bought with Anna’s own 
money when she descried the numerous darns in 
what remained of Ethel’s bridal outfit of napery. 
Hollis did not know this, or care to observe the traces 
of housework in the reddening and roughening of 
the “ Maiden’s hand." The cruelest neglect women 
ever receive from men who are men, is through the 
selfish absorption of the latter in other women. Cat- 
aract never so deadened the vision, nor stone-deafness 
the ear. 

This particular man ought to have appreciated the 
directness of his companion’s approach to the subject 
to be laid before him. 

“ Gerald Lupton was hanging about Mrs. Phelps’s 


A GALL AN 7' FIG 111'. 


3Sl 

garden this afternoon, waiting to speak to you or me,” 
she began. “Happening to catch sight of me on the 
back porch — ” 

“When you ran one way, I another, to get away 
from the lovers,” put in Hollis, with a rough laugh. 
“ Well, go on ! ” 

She obeyed gravely and quietly, not raising her eyes 
from her work : 

“ He beckoned me out and asked if I would walk 
in the rose-garden with him. He was all in a quiver 
with nervousness — quite unstrung between the dread 
of, as he said ‘ telling tales out of school,’ and keep- 
ing back what Mrs. Phelps ought to know perhaps. 
He is very fond of her and of Salome, but ‘ felt that he 
could talk more comfortably about it to me.’ It seems 
that, night before last, hearing voices in the library, 
he stole, downstairs into the parlors to peep at the 
visitors. His .curiosity had been already excited by 
catching a glimpse of his mother, in a different gown 
from what she had worn at dinner, slipping slyly down 
the stairs, carrying ‘ a big picture, — a queer sort of af- 
fair,’ he said — ‘with locked doors over it,’ that belongs 
in his brother’s room. He saw her over the balustrade 
of the third-story stairs, having been to the garret for 
a book he kept there. Interdicted literature, probably, 
but I made no comment. This incident tempted him 
to play the eavesdropper. The sllding-doors and the 
portilre between the back parlor and the library were 
shut, but he pried a crack between the doors with his 
knife-blade, winding it with his handkerchief to prevent 
noise. The curtains hung a very little way apart so her 
could see quite well all that went on in the other room.” 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


382 

“ That boy is educating himself for the State’s 
prison and gallows ! ” remarked Hollis, sententiously 
severe. 

“ I must confess that the cool premeditation of 
the misdemeanor shocked me somewhat. Yet I was 
interested when he described how his mother, 
‘ dressed up fit to kill, in silk and laces,’ sat there 
reading a letter aloud to Mr. Phelps, with the open 
picture by her. ‘ It was the likeness of Rex’s girl, 
the one who was killed on the railroad,’ he said, 
and a raving beauty.’ His mother was perfectly 
composed in face and talk, but Mr. Phelps looked pale 
and scared. 

“ I had the strength of mind to stop him there. 
‘ It was as dishonorable in me to listen, as in him to act 
the spy ! ’ I told him, and was leaving him in a pas- 
sion, when the boy actually burst into tears, and 
begged me not to oblige him to go to Mrs. Phelps or 
Rex with what he was sure was at the bottom of all 
the trouble. If Mr. Phelps were to die he would 
have to tell it all in court, most likely. He hadn’t 
slept a wink all last night — and so much more of the 
same wild talk, that I let him go on, convinced that 
while his imagination magnified the importance of the 
secret, there might be something in it that would cast 
light on the mystery. 

‘ Mamma was reading a letter,’ he repeated. ^ You 
know her smooth, purring way of talking — like water 
slipping down a hill ! ’ ” 

“ That’s not a half-bad description ! ” interjected 
Hollis. 

“So I thought. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘she talked a 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


383 


little and then read a little from the paper. It was 
awfully sentimental stuff — the reading was — like a 
love-letter in a novel. At last she got to a place 
where the man was begging his girl to give him six 
hours out of nobody knows how many half-dozen 
years she had to spare, and how he could take as good 
care of her as an angel ever could, and how Madeline 
would be the first to make fun of her if she didn’t 
come up to time, or words to that effect. And before 
I had time to think that Madeline was Mrs. Phelps’s 
name, too, up jumped Mr. Phelps and roared out that 
she must stop that, and asked her what price she put 
upon the stolen letter, and she stood up, too, and 
laughed in his face and I was afraid they were coming 
out of the room and would smoke me and legged it 
as tight as I could up to my room. By-and-by I 
heard Mr. Phelps’s voice in the hall, and took asquint 
at him over the banisters. He said something about 
sending the papers over in the morning, and his head 
feeling strange, and “ a trying day ! a very trying 
day ! ” and walked unsteadily on his pins, to the 
front door, without his hat. I thought he’d be back 
in a minute, but he didn’t show again.’” 

“ Mrs. Lupton reported those very words.” 

Yes — but she protested that the interview was not 
agitating — ' a simple matter of bargain and sale.’ I 
cross-examined Gerald sharply on this point. He 
stuck to his story — that ‘ Mr. Phelps was swearing- 
mad, and she as cool as an iced cucumber. Only no 
ice can be so confoundedly cool as mamma is, when 
other women would go into screeching hysterics.’ 
He insists, too, that she carried that picture back up 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


3S4 

to Rex’s room as soon as Mr. Phelps had gone. He 
saw her do it, and after she had looked into his room 
and told him it was nine o’clock and he ought to be in 
bed and went down again to the library, he stole 
across in his stocking-feet to his brother's chamber 
and found it on the easel in the usual place, the doors 
locked over the portrait.” 

“A queer story ! ” mused Hollis. 

An ugly business ! If half the boy tells is true, 
his mother has lied infamously. I am very uneasy 
and want somebody to share the responsibility. Will 
you tell Mrs. Phelps or Salome ? Or shall I ? ” 

It hurt her more than he could have guessed to see 
the sharp shiver that ran through him at the question. 
It seemed but just to her steady mind that the chance 
of doing either of them a service should be offered 
him first. 

A sullen anger clouded his handsome face. 

I’ll not mix myself up in the matter ! ” he growled. 
“ As likely as not it is all a fabrication of the boy’s, 
and we should get ourselves into a mess repeating it. 
I am sick to death of secrets and plots 1 ” 

He strode about the rooms, like a moody bear in a 
cage, finally stopped at her table ; spoke hard and 
doggedly : 

“ That picture would seem to show that that — man — 
was somehow mixed up in the quarrel — if there was 
any quarrel. I have dropped pretty low down in the 
scale of manhood in the past few hours. But I 
haven’t got to the depth of mean-spiritedness that 
would make me offer myself to him as a go-between 
from his first to his last love. If he needed me. And 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


385 


he doesn’t ! He’ll get the cream of life without my 
acting as skimmer ! ” flung out the tortured fellow, in 
a spasm of pain. Use. your own discretion, Anna ! 
I have none to-night. Give a man time to pick him- 
self up, won’t you ! ” with a sorry attempt at self- 
ridicule. 

He returned to his room, where there were no roses 
to-night, and being only twenty-three years old, laid 
his miserable head down upon the law-papers he had 
not touched all the evening, and cried as lie had when 
he got his father’s letter saying that his mother was 
dead, and he “ must bear the will of Providence with 
meek resignation.” 

Anna, twenty-one years of age, and tender-hearted, 
had her cry, too, all alone. Then, she quilted her 
needle neatly in the hem of a napkin, and folding it 
up, put aside her work-basket for her writing-desk. 
Before she slept, she wrote out for Mrs. Phelps, in 
detail, the story she had told Hollis. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


H e was swimming for his life in a swift channel 
that bore him down ! down ! away from the wife 
who stood on one shore of the narrow stream, some- 
times so near that he almost grasped her outstretched 
hands. On the other bank hovered Something — 
black, formless, and grisly, which likewise followed 
the stream, and ever and anon reached out for him. 
Strangling, panting, struggling, he thus floated and 
fought, helpless to reach the one a.nd chide the other, 
until, in a last agony, he sank into blank nothingness, 
with a last wild call on his wife’s name. 

' Then, he lay on his back in the middle of a burn- 
ing desert, pinioned hands and feet, the unwinking 
sun staring down upon him. Coppery exhalations 
shimmered on the horizon, and flickered upward from 
the red sands ; his head was bursting and his tongue 
baked with the cruel heat. Shrill, teasing bells rang 
incessantly in his ears ; he glowed and ached, as with 
a fire in his bones ; every pore had its pain. Only 
his head was free to move, and, rolling it from side to 
side, he could watch the approach, on one hand, of 
the white-robed figure with succoring arms held 
toward him, the light of a great love and pity in her 
face, — and on the other, the steady swoop of the hor- 
rid shape that might outstrip the angel feet. 

Again, he was bound, Prometheus-like, to a rock in 
386 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


387 


mid-ocean. The freezing waves glazed his limbs with 
ice ; the boom of the surge deafened him ; the tide 
was rising higher and higher, and, moving toward him 
from opposite directions were the two figures, — one, 
ail mercy, the other all despair, — and his paralyzed 
throat would not give forth the scream that would, he 
knew, hurry her to his salvation. 

Then, — and this terror occurred oftenest of all, — 
he was falling ! falling ! falling ! down an abyss. 
With the swiftness of light, the two winged forms sped 
downward after him, and the frenzied horror of his 
calculations as to which would grasp him first swal- 
lowed up the dread of striking the unknown bottom 
of the chasm. 

They were always in sight, always contending, as 
Michael the archangel and Satan for the Great 
Prophet’s body — for the possession of his pain-racked 
frame and for the soul crucified with bitterer anguish. 

Sometimes she offered him water, a cool, sparkling 
draught that caught the reflection of her face — and 
the grinning, grisly fiend struck down the cup and 
substituted scalding poison. 

He spoke but one word in the ten days during 
which his wife watched by his pillows on one side, and 
death on the other. Sometimes the lips only made 
the syllables the parched tongue could not sound ; 
sometimes he whispered it ; sometimes, screamed it 
shrilly and hysterically, as might a panic-stricken 
woman : 

“ Madeline ! Madeline ! Madeline ! ” 

She was ever within call. Even while not recog- 
nizing her, and praying that she would come, he would 


388 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


take his medicine and nourishment from no other 
hand. Her voice of command restrained the frantic 
efforts to escape from tide, from fire, from poison, — 
continually from the black, formless thing even she 
could not drive away. 

Paul, Hollis, Rufus Lee or Rex Lupton was at 
hand, by day and by night. Dislike and jealousy 
stood aloof in the awful precincts of the arena where 
life and death strove for mastery. Except in one 
brief interview between mother and son, shortly after 
the recall of the latter, in which Salome’s betrothal was 
mentioned as a settled matter, and he was too much 
engrossed by thoughts of his father’s peril to offer 
more than a passing exclamation of surprise — the sub- 
ject had not been discussed with any one. The secret 
rested with the few to whom it had been already 
intentionally or accidentally communicated. 

The surge of town-gossip, affluent, confluent, and 
refluent, dashed, hissed and foamed against the great 
house, unheeded by the inmates. The master’s con- 
dition ; the speculations as to how the widow and 
children would be “ left,” and what would be their 
future residence, with the thousand side-issues branch- 
ing off from the trunk-lines of conjecture — fairly 
drove the Lee-Fitchett imbroglio out of sight and 
mind. 

Anna Marcy, sometimes, and yet more frequently 
the indomitable next-door neighbor, received visitors 
and answered inquiries below-stairs. It is superfluous 
to add that the last-named personage was the more 
popular with callers and inquirers. She imparted 
desired information as if grateful for the solicitude 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


389 


manifested for her suffering friends ; “she divined 
intuitively what details people were dying to collect 
yet were ashamed to ask for outright. They left her 
and the smitten home, full of interesting news, and 
eager to give it circulation as “ official intelligence.” 
That she was at less pains to gratify them than if she 
had been a compiler, instead of the author of what she 
communicated, never crossed their shrewdly-simple 
minds. The sick man’s ravings of business, travel 
and friends ; his frequent mention of Freehold names 
and localities ; the tireless zeal of the Lee brothers, 
and Mrs. Phelps’s asseverations that, but for them, 
especially for the filial support of that “ noble Hollis,” 
she could never have borne up at all ; Paul’s devotion 
and Salome’s utter prostration of spirits, — were can- 
vassed as animatedly all over the town and suburbs as 
was the suspicious circumstance that her step-son’s 
name was pointedly avoided by the amiable and dis- 
creet matron. From all that Freehold could discover 
by the help of this ingenuous creature — “ so pleasant 
and free-spoken that one couldn’t believe she belonged 
to the same family as that high-and-mighty stick,” — 
and by aid of the Fitchett opera-glass, — Rex Lupton 
went regularly to his business every day, at the usual 
hour, and was in nowise moved by the troubles of his 
father’s old friends. Even the wary step-mother sur- 
mised, rather than knew, that he did not sleep for a 
single night in his room all through that terrible 
season of suspense ; that, when he disappeared imme- 
diately after the dinner over which he said little, 
and that in the coldest, briefest fashion, it was to 
go into the Phelps’s back door, and not to emerge 


390 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


from the house until the gray of the autumnal 
dawn. 

The secrecy and reserve maintained by him and 
the family of his betrothed were ominous. She had 
not once chanced to see Salome and himself together 
since the moment of his return from New York, but 
she felt assured that they were in regular communi- 
cation and did not delude herself with the hope that 
they, or the mother who met her with grave courtesy 
day after day, had forgotten one word uttered on that 
afternoon of surprised discovery. 

Whether Richard Phelps lived or died, her last 
fight for the accomplishment of her unrelinquished 
purpose was to be a duel, and with his wife. With- 
out making the error of underrating her antagonist’s 
skill, she felt herself justified in counting upon her 
ability to administer a within two min- 

utes after the fencing should begin. With no heart 
of her own to speak of, she was well-posted as to the 
anatomy of the organ, and believed that she had 
mapped out that of her opponent so skilfully as to 
make no wild strokes in feeling for the vital part. 
Rex’s implacable temper toward herself pleased, not 
wounded her. It was an earnest that he would 
neither forgive nor forget that double treachery of 
which she — the machinator — held the proofs. 

While biding her time she was in training for the 
encounter, went to bed seasonably, ate reasonably, 
and did not neglect the out-door exercise necessary 
to keep nerves and br«,in in health. 

On the eleventh day the fever gradually subsided. 
On the twelfth, temperature and pulse were normal. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


391 


On the fifteenth, the patient was pronounced to be 
out of immediate danger. One bland October day, 
four weeks after the afternoon passed with Mrs. 
Fitchett in the parlor-car, he was removed, partially 
dressed, from the bed to the lounge in his dressing- 
room, and called upon by his wife to admire the 
matchless garniture of the elms and maples of the 
lawn and town, with the softened coloring of the hills 
beyond. 

“ Comparing the greater with the less, the hillside 
on your left reminds me of my best India shawl,” she 
said playfully. 

He smiled, pressed her hand to lips that quivered, 
and, holding it against the thin cheek, lay, looking out 
upon the tranquil landscape until a warm mist flowed 
up between it and his eyes. 

The sweet dreamy silence was ended by James’s en- 
trance with a card. 

“ Mrs. Lupton is in the drawing-room, ma’am.” 

He almost smiled in presenting the salver, so 
unusual was the formality of the engraved paste- 
board. 

“ Say that I will be down in a few moments, James. 
And do you stay in the next room, and listen for Mr. 
Phelps’s bell.” 

It was in evidence of their appreciation of the .vis- 
itor’s love of dramatic effect that neither husband nor 
wife was surprised at the stately preface to the mo- 
mentous interview. Hers was not a friendly call. 
She intended that they should comprehend this, and 
they did. 

Should you want anything, ring for him,” con- 


392 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


tinued Mrs. Phelps calmly. “Salome has gone to 
ride." 

“ With Rex Lupton ? " 

She had not meant to tell him, but she would not 
descend to evasion. 

“Yes," she said, simply. “Try and sleep when 
you are tired of looking at the view." 

He clutched a fold of her gown ; pulled her down 
to him. The hollow, sad eyes gazed imploringly into 
hers. 

“ Darling ! " he said, brokenly and feebly. “ Prom- 
ise that you will not let that woman teach you to 
hate me ! " 

She did not seem disturbed by the adjuration, al- 
though he did not think that strange then, or until 
long afterward. 

“ Nobody could do that^ Richard !" she answered 
gently, putting back the hair from his sunken temples. 
“ You should not fear it by now ! " 

“ I should not ! But I do ! 1 am — I always have 
been utterly unworthy of you, my angel-wife ! But 
you are my wife, dear, — and however circumstantial 
evidence may press you to the opposite conclusion, I 
do love you with all my heart, soul and strength. I 
live but in your smile. Your frown would kill me !" 

“ You are excited, dear husband ! " yet more gently. 
“ I do not like to leave you. I will send word to Mrs. 
Lupton that I cannot see her to-day." 

The relaxation of inexpressible relief came into his 
face. Like other facile, ease-loving natures he caught 
at the postponement of pain he knew to be inevitable, 
as a boon of price. 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


393 


“Would you really be willing to put her off?” 
gratefully. “ I shall be stronger to-morrow, or next 
day. Better able to bear whatever may come.” 

With an impassive countenance she summoned 
James and sent her message, at the same time dis- 
missing him from duty. 

“ Mrs. Phelps regrets very much, ma’am, that in 
consequence of Miss Phelps having gone to ride, it is 
impossible for her to see any one this afternoon. She 
hopes you will excuse her from coming down,” was 
the message carried to the drawing-room. 

“Certainly, James ! I am glad she did not incon- 
venience herself for me. I can call again, to-morrow,” 
in tones as dulcet as banana-cream. “ I will just step 
into the library for a magazine Miss Salome promised 
me. Don’t wait, James ! ” 

In less than three minutes after James had taken 
her order, Mrs. Phelps said, “ Come in ! ” to a tap on 
the dressing-room door, and enter Mrs. Lupton, in 
correct visiting costume, hat and gloves on, and an 
envelope in her hand. 

Richard groaned an exclamation. His wife, arising 
dignifiedly, stood so as to screen him from the smil- 
ing intruder. 

“ Mrs. Lupton ! there has been some mistake ! I 
told James to say — ” 

“ Exactly what he did, my dear, I doubt not. 
James is unimpeachable, always. But, having already 
learned from him how comfortable Mr. Phelps is to- 
day, I thought it best not to defer what has already 
been too long neglected. I am charmed to see you 
looking so much like yourself, Mr. Phelps. What I 


394 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


have to say is no news to him, as he will testify, Mrs. 
Phelps. We talked the matter over pi-o and con^ ex- 
haustively, as one may say, the night he was taken ill, 
and agreed to refer it to you.” 

I must insist — ” Mrs. Phelps had not resumed 
her seat, although her visitor had settled herself at 
ease in a lounging chair. ‘‘ I must insist — ” advancing 
as she spoke — “ that you say what you wish to me in 
the next room. My husband is extremely weak — ” 

A low laugh rippled through the room ; Isabel 
looked up, the brown, velvet eyes radiantly saucy. 
She did not offer to stir. 

“ He always was, my dear ! I beg your pardon ! ” 
still laughing ; “ but your unexpected confession is 
so charmingly naive ! It clears the way — breaks the 
ground for me — does away with the need of preamble 
and all that, you know. Indeed, my sweet friend, it 
is not worth while for me to go to the trouble of ex- 
changing this delightful chair for another when I 
have so short a time to stay. And, I have no secrets 
with a wife from a husband, nor vice versa., as he can 
tell you. It is my forte — one of them — to be busi- 
ness-like. Have the goodness, please, to glance over 
this document, which, I am willing ‘ to take my Al- 
fred David,’ as Rogue Riderhood, or Mrs. Malaprop 
Fitchett would say, is a teste copy of one received by 
Miss Marion Bayard from Mr. Richard Phelps, the 
evening before she left home for her Albany journey. 
This,” offering a smaller paper, “ is a copy of her re- 
ply to the same.” 

In the speechless anguish of this, the supreme mo- 
ment of his life, Richard’s gaze rested only on his 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


395 


wife. All other senses were merged in that one long 
passionate farewell. He had had his last love-look, 
his last smile, — perhaps the last sentence he would 
ever hear from her whom he had wronged, deceived, 
outraged, — yet beside whom all other women were at 
this instant as paper puppets in his siglit. From the 
horrible heart-swoon he felt stealing over him, he 
prayed that he might never revive — that he might 
die, then and there, with her last kiss yet warm upon 
his lips. 

All this he felt, not thought, in one lightning-flash 
of conscious misery, before he saw the composed fea- 
tures change. A scornful smile spread from the 
eyes downward to the firm mouth ; her voice, 
clear and cold, told of exhaustless reserves of will- 
power. 

“ I am willing to believe that you do not under- 
stand what you ask of me, Mrs. Lupton. It is true, 
that as my friend’s executrix, and so appointed by the 
will found in her desk, dated a year before her death, 
I have a right to examine her papers. But I decline 
to read what purport to be copies of such, without 
inquiring further into the circumstances that placed 
them in your hands. How did you come by these, and 
how long have you kept them to yourself ? ” 

The intriguante had expected fight, and was not 
abashed. Her bridges were burned behind her, the 
river crossed. She had nothing to lose. 

“I took the original of this from the pocket of 
Marion Bayard’s half-burned gown. Of this — from 
the waste-paper basket into which Mr. Phelps had 
crammed it, after tearing it into small pieces.” 


39 ^ 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


“While the writer lay dead in the house, I sup- 
pose ? ” 

“ I am not ashamed to own it.” 

“ I hardly expected that you would be ! ” The 
scornful light was imperial, now. The grandly- 
poised head, the dilated nostrils, the curves of mouth 
and brows were the mien of a disdainful goddess. 
“ Knowing, as I do, the quickness of your perceptions, 
I had a right, however, to expect that you should 
know me better than to imagine that, in the examina- 
tion of an affair so serious as you imply this to be, I 
would be put off with what may be forgeries — espe- 
cially after you have owned by what means you ob- 
tained them. The motive that urged you to purloin 
and copy a letter in the circumstances indicated 
would, if need were, carry you further and instigate 
the composition of whatever you wished to have me 
believe. Here is my ultimatum. — I will not so much 
as touch those papers ! When you produce the origi- 
nals, I will read them in the hearing of any wit- 
nesses whom you may select. Allow me to repeat the 
suggestion that Mr. Phelps is altogether unfit to listen 
to agitating talk. We will walk into the other room, 
if you please.” 

Mrs. Lupton sat perfectly still, without a symptom 
of discomfiture. _ 

“ Mr. Phelps cannot deny the authenticity of my 
proofs of the relations that existed between him and 
Miss Bayard up to the moment of her death,” she 
said, facing him. “ If he can, let him speak ! ” 

His wife’s hand was over his mouth in a second. 

“ Not one word, Richard ! you shall not be hum- 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


397 


bled by submission to a test so degrading to you and 
to me ! Have you no humanity, Mrs. Lupton ? 
Cannot you see that you are endangering his life by 
bringing this wretched business into his sick-room ? 
What motive have you for persecuting him ? As his 
wife — as his nurse — I will not permit it ! I beg — I 
command you to leave the room ! Bring your original 
documents to me downstairs with two — ten — twenty 
witnesses if you will, including your step-son and my 
daughter, and read them aloud, or have them read to 
us. Will you go, now ? ” 

She was kneeling by the half-conscious man, her 
arm under his head, vinaigrette in hand ; as she 
spoke she rang a hand-bell violently. 

The other woman sat motionless, while James ran 
into the room, and, in obedience to his mistress’s di- 
rections, poured out a restorative. Motionless — but 
busy with thought — unholy fires filling eyes that lost 
not an incident of the scene. When the servant was 
dismissed, and the fainting victim began to breathe 
naturally, the rich, trainante accents again reached 
him : 

“ I begin to see daylight through the dust and 
smoke ! I spoke to you, some weeks after Miss Bay- 
ard’s death, of a sealed envelope left, with other effects 
of hers, in a locked drawer in the south room. I chal- 
lenge you to deny that you opened it and read the 
contents before destroying them. If — “ with keener 
scrutiny — “you ever did destroy them ! ” 

The wife still supported her husband’s head. She 
did not remove her eyes from his, — large and piteous 
as those of one who is slowly drowning. The breatb 


398 


A GALLAN'r FIGHT. 


fluttered and intermitted between his faded lips. 
Unable to articulate, he threw wretchedness, pleading, 
adoration into the gaze that clung to her as the only 
hope in earth or heaven. Seeming not to heed the 
last query, she smiled down at him, a gleam of loving 
compassion that quickened the weak action of the 
heart. Her disengaged hand lifted his dampened 
hair. She did not believe the horror yet ! 

I per-ceive ! ” said Mrs. Lupton, laughing and 
rising. “ I'hank you for the key to behavior otherwise 
inexplicable. Mr. Phelps ! I lied in telling you that 
the original of your letter was in my safe-keeping. 
Your wife had it — and read it ! My errand — or the 
part of it which pertained to her — was useless. I am 
more than satisfied.” 

“ Madeline ! ” 

He shook as in the death-ague. Such extremity of 
terror as she had never conceived of rushed into the 
eyes she held with hers ; a greenish pallor overspread 
his visage ; his thin fingers fastened on her sleeve ; 
his lips writhed, giving forth no sound. She smiled 
still, and continued to thread his hair with mesmeric 
finger-tips. In answering what his tormentor had 
said, her thoughts appeared to be divided by solicitude 
for her patient’s physical case. If the semi-abstrac-. 
tion were feigned, the acting was perfect. 

‘‘ If you refer to anything contained in the envelope 
you told me was in the south-room drawer, Mrs. Lup- 
ton — I can say that I found it there when we came 
back to Freehold last summer. There was so much 
to be attended to when we were getting ready to go 
abroad that much was overlooked. The envelope lay 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


399 


in the locked drawer all the ,time we were away. I 
found it, one day — and burned it.” 

“Unopened?” sarcastically incredulous. 

Mrs. Phelps returned the insolence with a level look 
— a lurking intonation of surprise in her reply : 

“ I burned the packet without breaking the seal. 

What could it matter after so many years ? ” 

“ And unread ? ” 

“Unopened and unread I ” A flash of haughty im- 
patience cast back the persistent impertinence. “ I 
deny your right to catechize me, but if reply will 
shorten this scene, you shall have it again. I burned 
the sealed envelope and contents just as I found 
them.” 

“ Had you never read that letter V 

One swift glance at the face on her arm, and she laid 
it tenderly on the" pillow. She stood up, as pale as 
he ; her eyes were black and deep with anger. 

“ Do you take me to be one like yourself ? What 
more explicit answer can I give ? What concern is 
this of yours ? This passes the bounds of decency and 
patience ! ” 

“ It is so much my affair that I do not leave this 
room until I have a categorical reply to my question. 
Did you never read the contents of that envelope? ” 

“ Never ! Now — will you go ? ” 

The two women confronted one another for an in- 
stant ; neither quailing, while^she seemed to take the 
measure of the other’s strength. Then, with auda- 
cious ease, and her most feline smile, the younger 
swept hostess and host a profound courtesy and left 
them to themselves. 


400 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


God forgive me ! ” 

The stifled cry recalled Richard’s shattered wits. 
Trying to raise himself on his elbow, he saw that his 
wife had fallen on her knees by a chair, her forehead 
on her palms, shivering and moaning in a wild, lost sort 
of way, utterly unlike herself. Greatly alarmed, he 
called her twice before she heard him. When, at last, 
she sprang up and came hastily toward his sofa, she 
was trying to smile — surely the bravest, strangest smile 
ever seen on martyr’s face ! 

“ Don’t mind me ! ” she said catching breath be- 
tween the syllables. I seldom get very angry. I 
don’t think I have lost my temper in twenty years as 
completely as I did just now. But I had provocation 
— hadn’t I ? We will say no more about it. You 
must rest, and it is time for your beef-tea. No ! no ! ” 
her palm again upon his mouth'. “ I will not let 
you talk ! What good would it do ? couldiVt 

get out of the room if I were to order you to go ! ” 
laughing nervously. “ I never thought I should ever 
be capable — or guilty — of the rudeness of turning a 
guest out-of-doors ! ” 

She rang for the beef-tea ; measured and added 
the wine advised by the doctor, and gave it with an 
unswerving hand ; drew a screen between the ex- 
hausted_ invalid and the window, and, taking a book, 
seemed to read until he fell asleep. 

Satisfied of this, she let the volume sink to her 
knee, while she watched the lower street and gate, 
afraid to yield to the sway of thought and reminis- 
cence until the rest of the trial was over. Without 
having heard the threat of exposure made to her 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


401 


husband, she apprehended fully what Isabel’s next 
step would be, and what was the prospect of partial 
success with one of Rex Lupton’s inflexible ideas of 
right and honor. It was beyond the power of created 
thing to alienate him from Salome, or to forfeit the 
mother her place in his loyal heart. But his step- 
mother could and would render him intensely misera- 
ble. She might raise a ferment of horror and grief 
and righteous indignation within him that would make 
his marriage with Richard Phelps’s daughter virtual 
separation from her home and parents. He could 
never again join friendly hands with the man who 
had done this thing. She must see him before he 
met the foiled schemer, and test his faith in herself 
to the utmost, — ask of him what few men would be 
willing to grant, — blind and ignorant obedience to 
j/hat might sound like a jeasonlesa behest. 

This done, she might get her out of sight for a 
little while ; might trust herself to look fairly at the 
stain she had set in her soul. 

For this was what it was. For the first time within 
her recollection, she been guilty of a downright lie ; — 
“ perjury,” she named it, with a cold, sick shudder ; 
then lashed back memory and conscience, that 
strength might be left for the interview with him 
who, as youth and man, had believed in and loved her 
as a son his very own mother. 

Richard sighed in his sleep, — a sobbing breath that 
brought her to his side. He was terribly prostrated 
by the exciting scene he had passed through. A 
relapse might be the result. Leaning on the screen, 
she regarded him fixedly, yearning heart and saddened 


402 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


soul in her strained gaze. Until now, she had 
reckoned as the most direful epoch in her life — not 
second to that great horror of darkness in which she 
had become the innocent spy upon her husband’s 
correspondence with her bosom-friend — the night 
when Richard had called Heaven to witness that he 
had always been true to her in thought, word and 
deed. Weak she had known him to be prior to that 
time — wickedly weak — a slave to impulse, and prone 
to see things as he would have them appear, rather 
than as they were, but not a man who would volunteer 
a falsehood, and take his solemn oath that it was 
truth. 

It is a sentimental fallacy that love cannot exist 
apart from respect. Of the twain, love is the more 
robust and lives on divorced or widowed, in isolation 
that may not be resigned, much less contented, yet 
which is to all appearance hale existence. 

Wifely respect, the glad homage of her upright 
soul to her husband, as her superior in moral and 
mental strength,— died and had dishonorable burial, 
one mockingly-bright August noon, six years agone, 
when, leaving her convalescing husband asleep in 
Salome’s charge, she summoned courage, without 
speaking of it to any one, to look over and put away 
the effects Marion had commended in writing to her, 
“ should she survive me.” The first sentence her eye 
lighted upon, on drawing the paper from the envelope, 
told her the worst. She had read all, each word 
branding itself upon her memory forever ; then, as 
she had truly stated, locked away a sealed envelope 
in the drawer as in a shameful grave, and left it there. 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 4^3 

as she believed, to be seen no more by human eye 
while she and Richard Phelps both lived. 

Love had made wifely duty more tolerable in one 
way than if he had become odious to her with the 
knowledge of his faithlessness. In another sense, it 
had made the cross sharper. Mrs. Lupton would have 
sneered exultingly had she surmised how often the 
wife’s heart had cried — not sung — the travesty of the 
mournful old song, — a travesty Isabel took credit to 
herself for inventing — “ Tender and untrue ! ” In 
her anguish of love at which reason should have 
blushed, she had sometimes thought the bitter-sad 
satire should be inscribed upon her chivalrous, win- 
some husband’s tombstone. 

This hour she knew a deeper depth of degradation, 
— even the lowering of herself to shield him. The 
salvation of his fair fame — the shadow worshipped by 
him — the protection of her children from befouling 
scandal ; Salome’s happiness ; the unspeakable dread 
of seeing her husband die under the scourge of 
detection, — by so much more fearful to characters 
like his than awakened conscience, as they love them- 
selves more than others, — all these things started up 
before her, in the one instant of recoil from actual 
and conscious falsehood, and hurled her forward. She 
had cried to an offended God for forgiveness. He 
knew the might of the temptation, and, being all- 
merciful, might assoil her soul. The blot would be 
forevermore visible to her. It was a Pyrrhian vic- 
tory with disasters never to be retrieved. 

Let him who has not been tried beyond his strength ; 
for whom expediency has never suddenly usurped 


404 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


the place of necessity, forbear to judge this woman. 
Her love was of a temper so divine that it withstood 
the fires of the furnace heated seventy times seven ; 
so pure, that it gathered no base elements from con- 
tact with perfidy ; so strong, that it triumphed over 
all possible rivals. I, who stand with bowed head in 
her presence, wordless, when I seek for terms that 
may fitly convey my reverence and wonder, frankly 
own, with her pious critics, that the thing for which 
she risked her soul and bartered peace of conscience, 
was not worth a tithe of the price paid for it. The 
love of a man like Richard Phelps was not to our 
cool, perspective view fit for her having or holding. 
We heard it said long ago, that her character was laid 
out in grand, simple lines. Her steadfastness to her 
marriage vow, the literal reading of the obligation to 
render honor and duty until the wedded ones 
were parted by death, her silence on the rack, her 
tender assiduity of care, the brave front turned to her 
world, were the outcome of this nature and the few 
staunch principles she had learned in all humility and 
singleness of heart. Combined, they made up for 
her — Wifehood. 

Slow, scalding drops trickled down her cheeks as 
she bent toward her sleeping husband. 

“ And I sat in judgment upon your sin, my poor, 
weak, tempted, unrepentanl dear ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


T he Oriental garb of the riverside hills was suf- 
fused with a roseate glow, as Salome and Rex, 
cantering up the drive on their return from their ride, 
saw Mrs. Phelps standing on the piazza, evidently 
expectant. 

“ How is papa ? asked Salome, before she touched 
the earth. 

“ Sleeping quietly. Look into his room when you 
have taken off your habit and see if he wants any- 
thing. Rex ! may I speak to you for a moment ? ” 
He followed her into the library with the light, 
peculiarly springy step which his step-mother was 
wont to describe as “ the only action he had that was 
less than fifty years old.” He looked happy, well and 
nervously expectant. 

“ I was about to crave an interview on my own 
account,” he said, “but, place aux dames ! I am at 
your service.” 

The smile common acquaintances rarely saw lent 
sweetness to the mouth and softness to the eyes. Exer- 
cise had tinted the clearly-cut pale face healthfully; 
the gentle deference of tone and demeanor was grace- 
ful and becoming. As he spoke, he laid his ungloved 
hand on one of hers as it rested on the sofa-arm. He 
was very fond of her; inexpressibly grateful in antici- 
pation of their nearer relationship. Nobody else had 
405 


4o6 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


mothered ” him since his childhood. She hardly ven- 
tured a second look as all this occurred to her ; be- 
gan her communication without preamble — obliging 
herself to speak evenly and without obvious emotion : 

“ Mrs. Lupton has been here this afternoon, and 
insisted upon seeing me in Richard’s room. The in- 
terview was agitating, but we will not speak of that. 
I trust the effect upon him will be nothing worse 
than temporary fatigue. She will ask you, probably, 
almost certainly, — to read some papers copied, she 
says, from letters written a little while before Marion’s 
death. One was addressed to Marion, the other — a 
mere note — is her reply. I do not wish you to see 
them. I know it all, and so does my husband. If 
the letters are genuine, respect for the dead and 
mercy to the living require that they should be sup- 
pressed and destroyed. If they are forgeries — so 
much the worse for the exhibitor. It is asking a great 
deal of you to require a blind pledge, but I think you 
may trust me where your peace of mind is concerned. 
Let the dead past bury its head. No good can come 
of raking in cold ashes. Don’t look at those papers, 
Rex ! Refuse to glance at them. Mrs. Lupton ob- 
tained them dishonorably, and it is cruelly wrong to 
show them to you or to any one ! If she gives them 
to you, burn them without reading one line.” 

The hard, cold look she knew well set his visage. 

“ It is infamous ! ” he said judicially. “ Isabel has 
disappointed me in many ways lately, but this passes 
belief. Her objections to my marriage are in some 
measure natural, since she no doubt imagines it to be 
opposed to her interest and those of the children. 


A GALLANl^ FIGHT. 


407 


She ought to understand, however, that nothing would 
induce me to read — with knowledge of their charac- 
ter — such papers as you describe. Thank you for 
putting me on my guard. And — ” winning accent 
and smile returning — ‘‘ still more, for the interest in 
my happiness that prompted the act. Isabel shall 
tell me nothing that I do not choose to hear. I prom- 
ise faithfully not to read a line or listen to a syllable. 
Does this set your mind at rest — motherlie ? ” 

She dropped her head upon his hand with a chok- 
ing sob. 

“ How he trusts me ! ” was her shamed thought. 
Would this stainless gentleman, without fear and 
without reproach, who takes my mere assertion as he 
would another’s oath and pledges his word on the 
strength of it, shrink from me if he knew all ? God 
might pardon me, but would he 2 ” 

He felt a hot tear on his fingers before she raised 
herself, but her smile was grateful and replete with' 
tender humility that touched hini to the quick. 

“ My dear son ! ” she said. “ My noble, true boy ! 
May you never know what a weight you have taken 
from my soul ! There are some things it is not good 
or safe to think of when one can keep his thoughts 
away from them. Now ” — laying her hand on her 
chest and drawing a long sigh, as if parting with the 
burden — “ what can I do for you ? ” 

“ Your petition was so small and mine is so great 
that I feel ashamed to speak of my promise as an 
equivalent for what I would have you say." 

Mrs. Lupton was in the library when her husband’s 
son came home that night. The cannel-coal fire was 


4o8 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


lighted at sunset every evening now, and the silver- 
gray tea-gown had made way for one of fine black 
cloth, tailor-made, that fitted without a crease. The 
amber plush portiere reflected fire and gas-glow in 
long, sheeny lances ; the white fringe of a Japanese 
chrysanthemum fitfully flushed with pink opened full 
in the warmth and glare ; the oak coppice screen with 
the silver-and-gray swallows flying across it, fenced 
in the reader’s chair from the breezy oriel. 

She laid by her book — by the way, it was that crys- 
tal-pure idyl, Julianna Ewing’s “ Story of a Short 
Life,” which she had begun aloud to the children 
after dinner and become. too much interested to put 
aside — and smiled a cordial welcome to the visitor. 

This is an unusual pleasure ! I was thinking 
just now how little we have seen of one another 
lately. I hope you are going to smoke your night-cap 
cigar over my fire ? ” 

“Thank you! Not to-night?” civilly defensive. 
“ No ! ” as she motioned toward a chair. “ You are 
very kind, but I do not care to sit down.” 

He did not even stand on the rug with his back to 
the fire — an easy attitude that would have given her a 
“purchase” on him. He stopped in front of her, 
less than five feet off, obliging her to strain her neck 
backward to see his face ; clasped his hands behind 
him and stood, if not at bay, icily-unapproachable by 
aught save direct and determined advance. 

“ I looked in to tell you that I am to be married the 
first of November. The ph)^sicians have ordered Mr. 
Phelps to Florida and Mrs. Phelps will go with him. 
We — Salome and I — will take their house during 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 409 

their absence. The ceremony will be very private, of 
course, in the present state of Mr. Phelps’s health, 
only our immediate relatives being present.” 

There he paused. As much of the story was told 
as he chose to give. 

The auditor’s musing eyes went from his chiselled, 
impassive countenance to the fiery grate, then back 
again. Her delicate brows were puckered interroga- 
tively. 

“ This is — ah — unexpected ! ” without a break in 
the legato ripple. “ Because — as you did not — or, 
rather as Mrs. Phelps did not allow me to state on the 
afternoon when you announced your new engage- 
ment — Mr. Phelps had assured me vehemently that 
the marriage should never take place ; that his 
daughter was as good as engaged to young Lee. He 
did not talk like a delirious man, and I supposed, you 
know, that he spoke — by — the card ! ” 

“ It is all settled definitely. There was never any 
foundation for the rumored engagement to Mr. Hol- 
lis Lee. It was right that you should be notified as 
to our arrangements, without delay. Good-night ! ” 

“ Don’t go, Rex ! ” a hurt tremble in the accent. 

I do wish you great happiness in your new relations. 
Salome is a lovely child, thoroughly amiable and 
sunny-hearted. With hardly her mother’s peculiar 
force of character, perhaps, but you have enough for 
both. You would not suffer the curb-matrimonial as 
meekly as Mr. Phelps does. 

“ One minute, please ! ” for his hand was on the 
door. “ I may tell the children — mayn’t I ? Gerald 
will be charmed — and astonished. He was so sure 


410 


J GALLAA^'r FIGHT. 


that Hollis Lee was the happy man. The little witch ! 
how cleverly she has outwitted everybody, including 
the poor Lees ! Ah, well ! I was a flirt myself until 
I settled down for life with a respectable mill-owner, 
ever and ever so much my senior. I don’t mean to 
flatter you,” frankly affectionate, “ but our impulsive 
girl is doing a more sensible thing than I expected 
from one of her romantic turn of mind. Her mother 
is the cleverest woman I know. And I am more 
gratified than I dare to tell you, Rex, dear,” — becom- 
ing gravely-maternal — “ that you have let the old 
dream go for what it was worth, and opened your 
eyes to see life as it is. Few first loves are judi- 
cious.” 

He was thoroughly uncomfortable when she let him 
go — as she intended he should be. He ground his 
teeth, in mounting the stairs, to take their edge off, as 
it were. Yet his distrust of his step-mother was not 
yet confirmed disbelief. His chamber was cheerful 
with the play of a wood-fire on the hearth ; his gas 
burning half-high ; his slippers and smoking-jacket 
were on an easy-chair wheeled up to the fender-stool. 
Isabel had her quirks and her follies, but she had 
always ministered faithfully to his physical needs, and 
made this house a home for him as far as she could. 
It was the fault of her temperament that they were not 
congenial associates. He wished he had been less 
curt in announcing his plan.s, and had not refused to 
smoke downstairs. 

Yet, after donning velvet jacket and slippers, he sat 
down, and lighting his cigar, leaned back to watch 
the fire and dream of Salome and their real home. 


A GALLANT FIGHT, 


4II 

Not until the weed was half consumed, did he observe 
an envelope on the table at his elbow. It was sealed 
and addressed to him, in a “ back-hand ” he did not 
recognize. Without a thought of Mrs. Phelps’s warn- 
ing, so far afield had his musings wandered, he opened 
it and drew out a letter written on thick business 
paper, and several pages in length. From within it, 
a half-sheet, folded once, slipped to the floor. This 
he picked up and unfolded. Upon it was pasted a 
smaller sheet of note-paper that had been torn and 
then fitted together. There were three lines of pen- 
ciled writing, but so blurred by crosses and joins that 
the cursory glance he cast upon it did not decipher a 
single word. Laying it aside, he turned to the letter 
for explanation. The chirography was bold and 
clerkly and might be that of a merchant’s or lawyer’s 
secretary. He did not think of Isabel, who wrote two 
or three hands, bearing only a family resemblance to 
each other. 

^'’In the Library. Nine o'clock P. M. 

“ My own Love You say in your letter 
(burned as soon as I had committed the contents to 
memory) that I must never call you that again. There 
is a higher law than that of man’s appointment, bind- 
ing our hearts together, stronger even than that of 
your sweet, wise lips. Until you are actually married 
to the man whom you confess you do not love, you 
will, according to that divine law, be my own, 
Marion — ” 

With a violent start, the 5^oungman shook the sheet 
from his fingers, as he would a serpent. 


412 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


This was what he had promised not to read, or so 
much as to touch ! The veins stood out high and 
dark on his forehead ; he drew in the air hissingly. 
Had a basilisk uncoiled from his bosom and thrust a 
forked tongue in his face, the shock would not have 
been greater. This was the letter written to Ma- 
rion ! ” He had thrown away six of the best years of 
his life upon the woman whom another man called his 
“ own love the man to whom she had confessed 
that she did not love her betrothed husband ! Who 
was he ? 

The letter had fallen with the first page uppermost. 
From where he stood, he could read what he had at first 
overlooked, and what would have put him on guard 
at once had he noticed it ; Authentic Copy ” was writ- 
ten on the upper left-hand corner. The words dis- 
pelled doubt. 

“ If they are genuine, respect for the dead, and 
mercy to the living require that they should be sup- 
pressed and destroyed,” Mrs. Phelps had said of 
‘'papers written a little while before Marion’s death.” 
His word was pledged. But what name would he see 
if he reversed the sheet before destroying it ? With 
a bound of the heart that would have assured him, 
had proof been needed, what his bonnie, living girl- 
love was to him, he put away all tender memories of 
the dead, false betrothed. He had worshipped and 
mourned the thinnest of shadows. He might owe 
respect — abstractly — to the dumb dead, but no rever- 
ence to a wild dream from which he had awakened. 
Who was the “ living ” to whom he was entreated to 
show mercy ? Where was the man who had first 


A GALLANT FIGHT. 


413 


robbed him, then let him play the sad-visaged dupe 
and fool, while the hey-day of youth slipped forever 
beyond his reach ? 

To learn that — to remember the name with execra- 
tion — to despise, with the full force of a wronged and 
honest soul — perhaps, to brand him as eur and black- 
guard, should he ever cross his path — would not be 
to break his word. Was it not his right — the poor 
rag of compensation he might claim for the incalcula- 
ble, the damnable evil the traitor had wrought ? He 
would confess it to Salome’s mother to-morrow — but 
this one thing he would do ! 

He stooped for the letter. 

“ Peace ! let him rest ! God knoweth best ! 

And the flowing tide comes in ! 

And the flowing tide comes in ! ” 

It was only his beloved step-mother on her nightly 
round of nursery and Gerald’s chamber, singing to 
her guileless self in passing her step-son’s door to 
prove her serenity of spirit ; but Rex staggered back 
into his seat, put his elbows on his knees, and covered 
his face with his hands. 

He smelled the balsam-boughs slanting to the 
water ; the trailing arbutus Salome wore in her belt, 
heard the waves lapping the prow and sides of the 
bounding boat. God’s glorious heaven was over 
them, and the sun was rising, after a long, long night, 
in his heart. The fresh, tender young voice told the 
tale of love and loss and patient submission. 

“ Peace ! let him rest ! God knoweth best ! ” 

Mrs. Lupton’s chamber-door closed upon the rest 
of the refrain. 


A GALLAN7' FIGHT. 


AH 

Aye ! and could not he — ^affluent in heaven’s best 
blessings, loving and beloved by the noble, true 
daughter of the Christian heroine who expected her 
“ son ” to stand fast by his plighted word, — the almost 
husband of a pure, high-souled woman, — afford to spare 
the miserable wretch whose own mind and memory 
must be a continual hell ? 

He pitied — he almost forgave him, as he took up 
the sheets from the floor, the scrap of paper from the 
table, and averting his eyes lest the signature might 
leap out at him from the twisting flame, laid them 
under the forestick, and did not look that way again 
until nothing was left of them but tinder and ashes. 


THE END. 


AUTUHJN OF 1888. 


Catalogue 

OF THE 

PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

Dodd, Mead & Company 

755 BROADWAY 

New York 


ARRANGED BY AUTHORS 


ANY BOOK ON THIS CATALOGUE 
WILL BE SENT BY MAIL ON RECEIPT 
OF ITS PRICE BY THE PUBLISHERS. 


DODD, MEAD & COMPANY’S 

CATALOGUE OF PUBLICATIONS. 


Abbott (John S. C.). American 
Pioneers and Patriots. A 

series illustrating the early his- 
tory and settlement of our coun- 
try. Each in one vol., i2mo, 
illustrated, $1.25. 

Columbus and the Discovery of 
America. 

De Soto, the Discoverer of the 
Mississippi. 

La Salle ; His Discoveries and 
Adventures with the Indians 
of the Northwest. 

Miles Standish, the Captain of 
the Pilgrims. 

Captain Kidd, and the Early 
American Buccaneers. 

Peter Stuy vesant and the Early 
Settlement of New York. 

Benjamin Franklin and the 
Struggles of our Infant 
Nation. 

George Washington and the 
Revolutionary War. 

Daniel Boone and the Early 
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Kit Carson, the Pioneer of the 
Par West. 

PaulJones, the Naval Hero of 
the Revolution. 

David Crockett and Early 
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[These attractive volumes, illustra- 
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and abounding with tales of courage 
and fortitude, and thrilling adven- 
tures among the savage tribes, are 
among the "best books i-sued. They 
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works on the most interesting periods 


American Pioneers, continued— 

of French history so popular. The 
story of Boone, always a favorite with 
the young, is retold with singular 
vividness and freshness. In Miles 
Standish we have a picture of the 
hardships of the Pdgnms from the 
parting at Delft Haven to their perils 
in the wilderne^s, when threatened 
by famine and surrounded by savage 
foes. De Soto reads like a romance 
and the chivalric deeds of knight- 
errantry. His adventures among the 
Indian races, his grand discovery of 
the Mississippi, and his burial in its 
waters, have never before been told 
so clearly, connectedly and circum- 
stantially. 

Christopher Carson is the story of 
one of the most famous of the Western 
adventurers whose life is a romance of 
the wilderness. 

Peter Stuyvesant gives a capital 
picture of the early history of New 
York before it passed into the hands of 
the English. The cliaracter of the 
eccentric old governor is vigorously 
drawn, and the whole narrative is no 
less entertaining than instructive. 

If a career of daring and successful 
undertakings, of gallant conduct in 
battle, of fearless enterprises at sea, is 
worthy of record, the life-history of 
John Paul Jones deserves a place 
in our country’s archives. 

The life of Crockett is a veritable 
romance, with the additional charm 
of unquestionable truth. It opens to 
the reader scenes in the lives of the 
lowly and a state of semi-civilization 
of which but few can have any idea. 

The wild and wonderful narrative 
of Captain Kidd forms a story which 
the imagination of Dickens, or Dumas 
could scarcely rival. 

La Salle was one of the purest and 
noblest of the pioneers of American 


2 DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 


American Pioneers, contimied — 
civilization, and as such his history 
should be read and understood. 

In Columbus we have again the 
story of the discovery of America, 
while the lives of Franklin and Wash- 
ington take us among the times that 
tried men’s souls, the dark days of the 
Revolution and the early years of the 
United States.] 

History of Italy. By John S. C. 
Abbott. From the earliest time to 
the present. Complete in one octavo 
vol., cloth, $2.00. 

History of Russia. Bjr John S. C. 
Abbott. From the earliest times to 
the present. Complete in one octavo 
vol., cloth, $2.00. 

History of Austria. By John S. 
C. Abbott. Brought down to the 
present time. Complete in one octavo 
vol., cloth, $2.00. 

History of Prussia and The 
Franco - Prussian War. By 
John S. C. Abbott. Complete in 
one octavo vol., cloth, $2.00. 

See also for above four volumes under 
“ Kingdoms of the World.” 


Abbott (Lyman, D. D.). A 
Layman’s Story. Being the 
Experiences of John Laicus and 
his wife in a country parish. 
i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

For Family Worship. By Lyman 
Abbott, D.D., Part I., Scripture 
Selections ; Part II., Family Prayers. 
i2mo, cloth, red edges, $1.50. 

Family Prayers, Edited by Ly- 
man Abbott, author of ” For Family 
Worship,” etc. i2mo, cloth, 50 cents. 

[“ Dr. Lyman Abbott’s book for 
Family Worship, will, I think, supply 
a real want. There are many people 
who desire to have regular family 
worship, but who do not feel equal to 
it without some such help as this 
book offers. Its Scripture passages 
are all pertinent to the occasions and 
ends for which they have been se- 
lected, and are so grouped as to be eas- 
ily found when sought. Such of its 
prayers as I have read strike me as 
excellent. Many a young minister 
whose extemporaneous prayers are 
often unsatisfactory to both himself 
and his conjjregation may study them 
with profit.’’ — ^I*rof. E. G. Robinson, 
D.D., Brown University, Providence.] 


Abbot (Willis J.). Blue Jack- 
ets of ’61. A history of the 
Navy in the Rebellion, for 
young people. Quarto, cloth, 
with many full-page pictures of 
great interest, $3.00. 

Blue Jackets of 1812. A His- 
tory of the Naval Battles of 
the Second War with Great 
Britain, to which is prefixed an 
account of the French War of 
1798. With 32 illustrations by 
W. C. Jackson, and 50 by H. 
W. McVickar. Quarto, canvas, 
$3.00. 

Blue Jackets of 1776. A his- 
tory for young people, of the 
navy in the time of the war of 
Independence. By Willis J. 
Abbott. With 32 full-page il- 
lustrations by W. C. Jackson. 
4to. White and blue canvas, 
$ 3 - 00 . 

Atwater (Bev. E. E., D.D.), 
The Sacred Tabernacle of 
the Hebrews. With fifty full- 
page illustrations, octavo, cloth, 
$2.50. 

[“ The book bears the marks of care- 
ful thought and of a judicious mind. 
I'he Tabern^le is first described ; its 
furniture, its services and its purpose 
are considered. The resources of mod- 
ern scholarship are freely used. The 
light of modern discovery is wisely 
employed. Probably no more accurate 
idea of what the Tabernacle was in 
itself, or in its relations to Jewish wor- 
ship. can be obtained than by the study 
of this work .” — The Presbyter ian.l 

Baird (Chas. W., D.D.). A His- 
tory of the Huguenot Emi- 
gration to- America. 2 vois., 
octavo, with maps and illustra- 
tions, $5.00. 

[” Dp Baird’s work is indeed one 
that will interest every lover of Free- 
dom, and every man who respects 
heroic conduct. Of course the de- 
scendants of the Huguenots, who pr<^ 
serve the old names and traditions. 


DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 


3 


% 

History of Huguenots, continued— 

will find much in it to gratify them 
personally. But it is most to be 
prized for its excellent exposition of 
a very important popular movement 
that has not heretofore been fully 
measured by historians. Diagrams, 
maps, views of places, copies of docu- 
ments, and other illustrations add to 
the value of this admirable produc- 
tion.” — Philadelphia Kvenitig Bul- 
letin. 

“ Dr, Baird is a born historian, and 
thoroughly qualified by his life-long 
studies, and especially by the extensive 
researches which he has made in the ar- 
chives of France and Britain, as well as 
America. The result of his studies and 
labors is a work of great and permanent 
value, not only to those of Huguenot 
descent, but to all who take an interest 
in tracing the causes and reading the 
history of the early settlement of this 
continent.” — New York Observer l\ 


Barr (Amelia E.). Jan Ved- 
der s Wife. A Novel. i2mo, 
$ 1 . 00 . 

A Daughter of Fife. 

The Bow of Orange Ribbon. 
The ScLuire of Sandal-Side. 

A Border Shepherdess. 

Paul and Christina. 

Master of His Pate. 

The Doadstone in the Breast. 

An American Romance. 

Sets of Mrs. Barr’s novels in 
uniform binding, boxed, 8 volumes, 
$ 8 . 00 . 

“ I want to thank you for the pleas- 
ure I have had in reading ‘JanVed- 
der’s Wife.’ It is the most natural 
story I have read in years, and is de- 
lightfully fresh and true from begin- 
ning to end.” — J. Haberton. 

“ ‘ A Daughter of Fife.’ A good 
story touchingly told in the sea-tongue 
of the Fife fishermen. These tender 
stories of broad Scotch dialect have a 
strong and mysterious hold upon the 
human heart.” — Washington Post. 

“‘A Border Shepherdess ’ is a very 
striking book. The character of the 
heroine is admirably wrought out, the 
movement of the story well sustained, 
and the moral atmosphere distinctly 
high and pure. It stands in the front 
rank of novels.” — The Churchman. 


Barr (Amelia E.), continued — 

“‘Paul and Christina’ is a book of 
exceptional merit, and of deep pathetic 
interest. The story is powerful, thrill- 
ing and of strong moral effectiveness, 
and well deserves the popularity it is 
sure to attain.” — Boston Conimon- 
wealth. 

“ The ‘ Bow of Orange Ribbon’ is a 
romance pure and simple. The love 
tale which forms the main thread of the 
novel is a singularly pure and touching 
one. The story contains abundance of 
incident, and moves rapidly and eas- 
ily.” — The Christian Union. 

“ The ‘ Squire of Sandal-Side ’ is one 
of those agreeable tales of a simple, 
broad rural life which Mrs. Barr tells so 
well. It breathes a large and whole- 
some atmosphere.” — N. Y. Tribune. 

‘“Master of His Fate’ is in some 
respects the most realistic of Mrs. 
Barr’s novels. There is a keen power 
and fine discrimination in the character 
drawing that makes the book attractive 
and thoroughly entertaining in the 
reading.” — The Gazette, Boston. 


Bell (Robert). Songs from 
the Dramatists. Edited with 
notes and biographical sketches. 
I vol., i2mo, printed from new 
plates by De Vinne, $1.50. 

Besant and Rice. The 
Novels of Walter Besant 
and James Rice. By arrange- 
ment with Messrs. Chatto & 
Windus. Library Edition, 
crown octavo, handsomely 
printed and bound in cloth, 
with gilt tops, $1.50 per volume. 

The Golden Butterfly. 

By Celia’s Arbour. 

With Harp and Crown » 

The Chaplain of the Fleet. 

The Monks of Thelema. 

The Case of Mr. Lucraft. 

My Little Girl. 

The Ten Years’ Tenant. 

Ready Money Mortiboy. 

The Seamy Side. 

This Son of Vulcan. 

’Twasin Trafalgar’s Bay, 


4 DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS, 


Bible Steps for Little Pil- 
grims. Stories from the Old 
and New Testaments. Pro- 
fusely illustrated, i2mo. 


Bicknell (A. H.). Original 

Etchings. Ten etchings now 

first published. With text by 

William Howe Downes. 

1st. Vellum proofs signed, ac- 
companied by Japan proofs 
signed, in portfolio with text. 5 
copies, $125.00. 

2d. Satin proofs signed, accom- 
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$75.00. 

3d. Satin proofs signed, in 
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$50.00 

4th. Japan proofs signed, in 
portfolio, with text. 70 copies, 
$25.00. 

Also on etching paper, bound 
in cloth, full gold. Folio, $10.00. 


Bowles (Emily). In the Ca- 
margue. A Novel. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 


Brenda. Nothing to N obody. 

A Tale. i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 


Browning (Elizabeth Bar- 
rett). Poetical Works of 
Mrs. Browning. A new edi- 
tion printed from new plates by 
De Vinne. 5 vols., 8vo, with 
portrait of the author. Large 
paper edition printed by De 
Vinne, limited to 172 copies, 
each copy numbered and signed, 
as follows : 

On vellum, 2 copies. 

On Japan paper, 20 copies. 

On Holland paper, 150 copies. 
A few copies of the Holland 
edition only can still be supplied 


Browning (Elizabeth B.), continued — 
at $25.00. Library edition, 5 
vols., i6mo, handsomely printed 
on fine paper, and bound in cloth, 
with gilt side and back, gilt tops, 
$6.25. 

[“ Lovers of Mrs. Browning have 
long wished for a complete and satis- 
factory American edition of her works. 
There has indeed been a positive need 
of such an edition, that need is now 
filled by the five beautiful volumes 
published by Dodd, Mead & Company. 
It is not often even in this age of good 
book-making that a handsomer set of 
volumes comes under the e}'c of the 
reviewer than these. ^’] 

Browning (Robert). Selec- 
tions from the Poetry of 
Robert Browning. With an 
introductory note by Richard 
Grant White. Printed on linen 
paper by De Vinne. With an 
etched portrait by Ritchie. 
i6mo, cloth, full gilt, $1.25. 
Large paper edition, 70 copies, 
printed on Japan paper, bound 
in vellum, at $15.00. 

[“ The work of collecting and ar- 
ranging the verses was done by half 
a dozen lovers and students of Mr. 
Browningifi poetry, and Mr. White’s 
task has been to criticise the result of 
their joint labors, which were modified 
according to his suggestions. This 
he explains in the introduction, and of 
the collection itself he says: ‘ It pre- 
sents, I am sure and presuming enough 
to say, Browning at his best, and neady 
all the best of Browning .’” — Buffalo 
Commercial Advertiser 

Bryan (Michael). Dictionary 
of Painters and Engravers. 

A new edition from entirely 
new plates. Revised and 
brought down to date. To be 
issued in about 12 parts. Price, 
per part, in paper covers, $1.75. 
Vol. I. (containing parts i to 6 
inclusive) now ready. Imperial 
octavo, cloth, $12.00. 

[“Since the appearance of the last 
edition of Bryan’s ‘Dictionary of 


DODD, MEAD <2r» COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 5 


Bryan (Michael), continued— 

Painters and Engravers,’ which was 
issued in 184'). tlie publication of 
many valuable works on art and mono- 
graphs of aitists, some of them em- 
bodying ih-j results of careful researches 
amongst city records, gnild-boi ks. and 
char, h reg sters, particularly in Italy 
an I in the Nctheilands, has furnish'd 
many new sources from which material 
has been derived for ihe correction and 
enlargem- nt of ih.s work. Most espec- 
iallj' IS the editor indebted to the in- 
valuable works of M-ssrs. Cr we and 
Cavalca-elle, Burckhaidt, Milantsi and 
Morelii on the Italian painters, of 
M essrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Weale 
and' Kramm on Flemish and Dutch art, 
and of the late Sir William Stirling 
Maxwell on the artists of Spain. 

“ Besides the addition of a large num- 
ber of names which were not included 
in the former edition or its supplement, 
new authority has been given to every 
one of the old entries by^ a careful re- 
vision, and in most instances by impor- 
tant changes. In several cases the no- 
tices have been supplied by contributors 
specially qualified for the task, such as 
Mr. W. B, Scott, Dr. J. P. Richter, the 
late Mrs. Heaton, and others ; these 
will be distinguished by the writer’s in- 
itials. It is anticipated that the new 
matter introduced will enlarge the 
work to double its former size ." — 
From the Preface^ 


Burckhardt (Jacob). The Civ- 
ilization of the Period of 
the Renaissance in Italy. 2 
vols., 8 VO, illustrated, $7-50. 

Cervantes (Miguel de Cervan- 
tes S-iavedra). The Ingeni- 
ous Gentleman Don Quixote 
of La id^ancha. Translated, 
with introduction and notes, by 
John Ormsby. 4 vols., i2mo, 
$6 00. Limited large paper 
edition, 50 copies only, $25.00. 

Charles (Mrs. Andrew).^ Sto- 
ries, as follows, each in one 
vol., i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Schbnberg- Cotta Family, Chron- 
icles of the, as told by two of them- 
selves. lamo, cloth, Ji.oo. A cheap 
edition, 410, paper covers, 25 cents. 


Charles’sWorks, contimied — 

Early Dawn (The) ; or. Sketches 
of Chri'tian Life in England in the 
Early Tune. 

Diary of Kitty Trevelyan. A 
Story of tlie 1 iines of Wluiefield 
and the We-Ieys. 

Winifred Bertram, and the 
World She Lived In. 

The Draytons and Davonants. 

A Sior\- of the Civil War.-. 

On Both Sides of the Sea. A 

Story of the Commonwealth auu the 
Resiorat ion. 

The Victory of the Vanquished. 

A Story of the First Century. 

Joan the Maid, Deliverer of France 
and England. 

Lapsed, but not Lost. A Tale of 
Carthage, and the Early Church. 
Note-Book of the Bertram 
Family. A sequel to Winifred 
Bertram. 

Women of Chr^tendom. Being 
Sketches of the Lives of the Notable 
Christian Women of History. 

Watchwords for the Warfare 
of Life. Selected from the Writ- 
ings of Luther. 

Conquering and to Conquer. 
Against the Stream. The Story 
of an Heroic Age in England. 

Three Martyrs of the XIX. 
Century. 

The above fifteen volumes are fur- 
nished boxed if desired. 

Mary the Handmaid of the 
Lord. i8mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Poems. i8mo, cloth. 

Songs Without Words. i6mo, 

cloth. 

P‘ The moral tendency of the books 
by this author is of the highest charac- 
ter, and as she is wont to take a subject 
which brings her into the domain of re- 
ligious history she teaches lessons of 
the greatest value to young and old.” — 
Few York Observer. 

The ” Chronicles of the Schonberg- 
Cotta Family ” illustrate most charm- 
ingly a page of history ; to young peo- 
ple the dullest and driest, perhaps, if it 
IS to be learned by D'Aubigne’s “ His- 
tory of the Reformation.” 

Kitty Trevelyan is a sweet, earnest- 
thinking English maiden who lived in 
the days of the Wesleys, and has her 
orthodox Church - of - England piety 
somewhat stirred and deepened by their 
lives and preaching. 

In the Early Dawn ” the Christian 
life of England in the olden time is de- 
picted through several centuries, from 
Its earliest dawn, in its contrasted lights 


6 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY^ S PUBLICATIONS. 


Charles’s Works, continued— 

and shadows down to the morning star 
of the Reformation. 

“Winifred Bertram” is a story of 
modern life with its scene laid in the 
heart of London. “ Delightful and 
charming are not properly descriptive 
of it, for while it is both it is more than 
both ; it is of the kind of books that 
one cannot read without growing bet- 
ter.” 

“ The Draytons and Davenants ” 
.starts with the first agitation of Pro- 
testantism as a political element in 
Great Britain, and proceeds through 
the civil wars that followed. 

In “ On Both Sides of the Seas,” 
opening with the tragic scenes of the 
execution of Charles I., we have pre- 
sented in the highly dramatic style of 
the author the establishment of the 
Commonwealth under Cromwell, its 
brilliant career, the Death of the Pro- 
tector, and the Forcible Emigration to 
America on the Restoration of the 
prominent actors in the overthrow of 
the monarchy, etc.] 

Charlotte-Elizabeth. Judab’s 
Lion. i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 


Child (Lydia Maria). Life of 
Isaac T. Hopper. A new 

edition of this stirring book, for 
many years out of print. i2mo, 
$ 1 . 00 . 


Church (Alfred J.), Professor 

of Latin in University College, 

London. 

Stories from Homer. 

Stories from Virgil. 

Stories from the Greek Trage- 
dians. 

Stories from Livy. 

Homan Life in the Days of 
Cicero. 

Stories of the Persian War 
from Herodotus. 

Stories from Herodotus. 

Two Thousand Years Ago ; or 
the Adventures of a Homan 
Boy. 

Stories of the Magicians. 

With the King at Oxford. 

The Chantry Priest of Barnet. 

Each I vol,, i2mo. Illustrated 


Church’s Works, continued — 
with about 20 plates, many in 
color, from designs by F'laxman 
and others. Cloth extra. Per 
vol., $1.50. 

Sets of this author’s works, 
boxed, II volumes, $16.50. 

[“ Alfred J. Church has done for the 
classics what Charles and Mary Lamb 
did for Shakespeare, and what the for- 
mer proposed to do at one time for 
Beaumont and Fletcher .” — Mail and 
Express. 

“ They are well done, open the wmy 
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terest on their own account. Except- 
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moralizing didactics, that they are 
strong and manly and exhibit virtue in 
a large, noble and imposing light, not 
shining in holiness, perhaps, but free 
from littleness and mannerism.” — In- 
dependentl\ 


Clark (Rev. Edson L.), Mem- 
ber of the American Oriental 
Society. 

The Races of European Tur- 
key — Their History, Con- 
dition, and Future Prospects. 
With Map. 8vo, cloth, $2.00. 
See “ Kingdoms of the World." 


Coan (Rev. Titus). Advent- 
ures in Patagonia. A Mis- 
sionary’s Exploring Trip. i2mo, 
$1.25. 

[“ Rev. Titus Coan’s first appoint* 
ment as a missionary was to Patagonia, 
then an unknown country, which he 
was commissioned to explore. Asw’ould 
be imagined, this exploring tour was 
full of thrilling adventures, and it reads 
very much like the narratives of the ex- 
plorers of America three hundred years 
ago. The energy, courage, and endur- 
ance of the man were wonderful.” — 
Herald and Presbyter !\ 


Comyn (S. N.). Elena; An 
Italian Tale. i2mo, cloth, 
$1.00, 


DODD, MEAD COMP ANY' S P UBLICATIONS. 


7 


Cook (Dutton). Doiibleday’s 
Children. A Novel. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

Corson (Juliet), Superintendent 
of the New York Cooking 
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The Cooking Manual of Practi- 
e il Directions for Economical 
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water-proof cover.-., 50 cents. 

Practical American Cookery 
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by I u LI HT Corson. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 

Cox (Kenyon). The Blessed 
Damozel, by Dante Gabriel 
Rosetti, with illustrations by 
Kenyon Cox. Large quarto, 
cloth, $15.00. 

New edition, containing a selec- 
tion of nine of the most beau- 
tiful plates of the original 
edition, qto, cloth, gilt tops. 
In a new design, $7.50. 

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, The 
Life of Titian, with illustra- 
tions. 2 vols., Stm, $7.50. 

[“ No such gap has existed in the his- 
tory of art as that which is filled by the 
present volumes. Everything on the 
subject is now superseded. Here will 
be found in a digested and orderly form 
all the materials gathered by Jacobi, 
Cadorin, Bermudez, Sandrart, Hume, 
Gachard, Pungileoni, Morelli, Lorenzi, 
Campori, and others, and additional in- 
formation of great value derived from 
the letters found at Simancas, letters 
from Titian, Charles the Fifth, Philip 
the Second, aUd others.” — Athenceiiin, 
May 10, 1877.] 

Cruden (Alexander). Cruden’s 
Complete Concordance, A 

Dictionary and Alphabetical In- 
dex to the Bible. (The Un- 


abridged Edition.) 

4to, 856 pages, sheep $2.50 

Half morocco 4- 50 

Student’s Edition (complete), 
cloth 1.50 

[By which, I. — Any verse in the 


Bible may be readily found by looking 


Ckuden’s Concordance, continued — 

for any material word in the verse. To 
which is added; 

II. The significations of the principal 
words, by which their true meanings in 
Scripture are shown. 

HI. An account of the Jewish cus- 
toms and ceremonies illustrative of 
many portions of the Sacred Record. 

IV. A Concordance to the Proper 
Names of the Bible, and their meaning 
in the original. 

V. A Concordance to the Books called 
the Apocrypha. 

To which is appended an original life 
of the Author.] 

Cumberstone Contest (The). 

By the author of “ Battles 
Worth Fighting.” A new Edi- 
tion. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Curzon (Robert), Monasteries 
of the Levant. A new Edi- 
tion. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 

Dana (Prof. Jas. D.). Professor 
of Geology in Yale College, 
author of “ A System of Miner- 
alogy, etc.” 

Corals and Coral Islands. 

Large 8vo, with colored frontis- 
piece, three maps, and nearly 100 
illustrations. Cloth, extra, $3.50. 

[“ It forms a thoroughly exhaustive 
treatise on the natural history of corals, 
in which the present state of knowledge 
is exhibited in a method adapted to 
popular reading, but without any sacri- 
fice of scientific precision. The theme 
comes home to the ‘ bosoms and busi- 
ness ’ of so many of our readers, that 
they will doubtless be gratified with a 
brief account of the origin and nature 
of the ornament which plays so conspic- 
uous a part in the formation of certain 
geological localities.” — N. Y. Tribune.^ 

De Forest (Julia B.), A Short 
History of Art. Octavo, with 
253 illustrations, numerous 
charts, a full index giving the 
pronunciation of the proper 
names by phonetic spelling, and 
a glossary. $2.00. 

[“ It is a library of art histories crys- 
tallized into a most useful hand-book. 
The author has made by far the best 


8 


DODD, MEAD b* COMP ANT S PUBLICATIONS. 


Deforest (Julia B.)> continued — 
text-book for beginners in art history 
that has yei appeared. The book is 
clear and vigorous in style, and written 
■with a firmness that comes of sure 
k owledge.” - IVorid.l 

D8 Liefde (J. B.). The Maid 
of Stralsund. An Historical 
Novel of the Thirty Years’ War. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

[“ 'I'his historical tale open&with the 
siege of Stralsund in 1628, an'l finishes 
very properly with the death of the 
great Gtistavus, taking in the storming 
of that city, the sack of Magdeburg, 
the battle of Lutzen, and the plots of 
Wallenstein. A better period for this 
species of novel could not be found, and 
the author has turned it to good ac- 
count. No page is tedious, no descrip- 
tion spiritless, no leading event omitted 
or misrepresented .” — Christian Reg'is- 
ier.^ 

Dodd, Mead & Company’s 
Series of Novels, Uniformly 
bound in cloth and gold. i2mo. 
Each, $1.00. 

Through a Needle’s Eye, by 

Hesba Stretton. 

D"vid Lloyd’s Last Will, by 

Hesba Siketton. 

Carola, by Hesba Stretton. 
Bede’s Charity, by Hesba Stret- 
ton. 

Hester Morley’s Promise, by 

Hesba Stretton. 

In Prison and Out, by Hesba 

Stretton. 

Cobwebs and Cables, by Hesba 

Stretton. 

Kavenshoe,by Henry Kingsley. 

Geoffry Hamlyn, by Henry Kings- 
ley. 

Austin Elliott, by Henry Kings- 
ley. 

Leighton Court, by Henry Kings- 
ley. 

Hilly ars and Burtons, by Henry 
Kingsley. 

The Maid of Stralsund, by J. B. 

De Liefde. 

Doubleday’s Children, by Dut- 
ton Cook. 

Isaac T. Hopper. The Story of 
his Life. 

Broken to Harness, by Edmund 
Yates, 


Dodd, Mead & Co.’s Series, cant'd — 

Running the Gauntlet, by Ed- 

mund Vates. 

Linnet’s Trial, by author of 
“ Tw ice Lost.” 

In the Camargue, by Emily 
Bowles. 

Victory Deane.by Cecil Griffith. 

After Long Years, by Ausburn 
Towner. 

Mainstone’s Housekeeper. 

Vie eta, by Ernest Werner. 

Elena, by L. N. Comyn. 

Cassique of Kiawah, by Wm. 

Gilmore Simms. 

Forging their Chains, by Mary 
A. Roe. 

Margaret, by C. C. Frazer Tytler. 
The Starling, by Norman Mac- 
Leod. 

Sir Tom, by Mrs. Olyphant. 
Gautran ; or. The House of White 
Shadows, by B. L. Farjeon. 

A Golden Shaft, by Charles Gib- 
bon. 

Gideon Pleyce, by H. W. Lucy. 
The Secret Dispatch, by James 
Grant. 

How It All Came Round, by L. 

T. Meade. 

The Lillingstones of Lilling- 
stone, by K. J. WoRBoiSE. 
Winifred Power. 

A Long Search, by Mary A. Roe. 
A Sea Queen, by W. Clarke Rus- 
sell. 

The Canon’s Ward, by Payn. 

To the Bitter End, by Mrs. Brad- 

don. 

Mr. Scarborough’s Family, by 

Trollope. 


Bollinger (Dr. J, J. Von). Fa- 
bles Respecting the Popes 
of the Middle Ages, Trans- 
lated by Alfred Plummer. To- 
gether with Dr. Dellinger’s 
Essay on the Prophetic Spirit 
and the Prophecies of the Chris- 
tian Era. Translated for the 
American Edition, with Intro- 
duction and Notes to the whole 
work, by Prof. H. B. Smith, 
D.D. Large i2mo, cloth, $2.25. 


DODD, MEAD ^ CO MPA NTS PUBLICATIONS, 


9 


Douglas (Marian). Peter and 
Polly ; or, Home Life in New 
England a Hundred Years Ago. 
i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

D. T. S. Mustard Leaves, A 

Glimpse of London Society. A 
novel, by D. T. S. i2mo, cloth, 
$ 1 . 00 . 


Economical Libraries for Sun- 
day-Schools, Economical A. 
50 vols., i6mo. In attractive 
binding. Sold in sets only, 
$24.50. 

Against the Stream, by author of 
the Schonberg-Cotta Family. Amy 
Carr, by Caroline Ghhesebro. 
Ancient Egypt, with over forty 
illiKtraiions. Bow of Orange 
Ribbon, bv Amelia E. Bari;. 
Builders of the Sea, with over 
forty illusi ration-;. Brewer^S 
Family, hy Mrs. Ellis. Cherry 
and Violet, by the author of M ry 
Powell. Chronicles of the 
Schonberg-Cotta Family. 
Gassy, by Hr'^ba Stretton. Cap- 
tain Christie’s Granddaugh- 
ter, by IMks. Lamb (Ruth Buck). 
Clifford Household, by J. F. 
Moore. Conquering and to 
Conquer, by the author rf the 
Sclioiiberg - Cotta Family. Ccunt 
Raymond, by Charlotte Eliza- 
beth. Dead Sin ('J he),l y Ed- 
ward Garrett. D oi n g and 
Dreaming, by Edward- Garrett. 
Deserter (.Ihc), by Charlotte 
Elizabeth. Falsehood and 
Truth, by Charlotte Elizabeth. 
Frozen North, with forty illus- 
trations. For Conscience Sake, 
by the author of Alice Lee’s Dis- 
cipline. Graham’s (The), by Jane 
Gay Fuller. Gold and Dross, 
by Edward Garrett. Geneva’s 
Shield, by Rev. Wm. M. Black- 
burn. Half Hours in the Far 
East, with 100 illustrations. India, 
with over 40 illustrations. Jacques 
Bonneval, by the author of hlary 
Powell. Judea Capta, by Char- 
lotte Elizabeth. Judah’sLion, 
by Charlotte Elizabeth. Kitty 
Bourne, wiih sixty full -page illus- 
trations. Little Fox (The.) The 
Story of McClintock’s Arctic Exped- 
ition, by the author of Maggie and 
Mattie. Lost Gip, by IIesca 


Econo.mical Libraries, continued — 
Stketton. Lucy Loo, by Jane 
Gay Fuller. Max Kiomer, by 
Hrsb\ Strktton. Miracles of 
Faith. A Sketch of the Life of 
Beatd Paulus. Morning Clouds, 
by Mrs. Stanley Leathks. Mists 
of the Valle^by Agnes Giberne, 
Marcella of Rome, by Frances 
Eastwood. Nothing to No- 
body, by Brenda. Note Book 
of the Bertram Family, by the 
author of the Cotta Family. Ori- 
ental and Sacred Scene^ by 
Fisher Howe. Orphan’s Tri- 
umphs, by H. K. PoTwiN. Occu- 
pations of a Retired Life, by 
Edward Garrett. _ Ocean (The), 
with forty illustrations. Philip 

Brantley’s Life Work, and 
How He Found It. Pastor of 
the Desert, by Eugene Pelletan. 
Robert the Cabin Boy, by H. 
K. PoTwiN. Song Without 
^^ords, by the author of the Schbn- 
berg-Cott^ Family. Sunlight 
Through the Mist. Lessons 
from the Lives of Great and Good 
Men. Spanish Barber, by the 
author of Mary Powell. Uncle 
John’s Flower Gatherers, by 
Jane Gay Fuller. Winter in 
Spitzbergen. From the German 
of C. Hildebrandt. 


Economical library, B. 60 
vols., i6mo. In attractive bind- 
ing. Sold in sets onl}', $29.00. 

Alice and Her Friends ; or, the 
Crosses of Childhood. Agnes 
Warrington’s Mistake, by Lucy 
Ellen Guernsey. Bible Lore, by 
Rev. J. Comber Gray. Brought 
Home, by Hesb.a Stretton. 
Crooked Places ; a Story of 
Struggles and Triumphs, hy Edward 
Garrett. Crust and the Cake, 
by Edward (Jarrett. Cumber- 
some Contest, by the author of 
Battles Worth i'ighting. Cousiu 
Bessie; a Story of Youthful Earn- 
estness, by Mr.s. E. L. Balfour. 
Character Sketches, by Nor- 
man MacLeod. Crew of the 
Dolphin, by He.sba Stretton. 
Children of the East, by H. H. 
Jessup, D.T)., Missionary in Syria. 
Claire’s Little Charge, by the 
author of Lonely Lilly. Christian. 
"Way (The); Whither it Leads and 
Howto Go On, by Rev. Washington 
Gladden. Draytons and the 
Davenants ; a Story of the Civil 


lo DODD, MEAD COMPANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 


Economical Libraries, continued — 
Wars in England, by tlie author of 
the Schonberg-Cotta Family. Deaf 
Shoemaker ; and Other Stories, 
by Philip Barrett. Double 
Story (A), by George Macdonald. 
David Lloyd’s Last Will, by 
Hesba Stretton. Daughter of 
Fife, by Amelia E. Barr. Early 
Dawn; or, Sketches of Christian 
Life in England in the Olden Times, 
by the author of the Schbnberg-Cotta 
Family. Familiar Talks to 
Boys, by Rev. John Hall, D.D. 
Faire Gospeller (The) ; Mistress 
Anne Askew, by the author of Mary 
Powell. Finland Family; or, 
Fancies Taken for Facts, by Susan 
Peyton Cornwall. Henry Wil- 
lard ; or, The Value of Right Prin- 
gles, by C. M. Trowbridge. 
House by the Works, by Ed- 
ward Garrett. Household of 
Sir Thomas More, by the author 
of Mary Powell. Happy Land ; 
or, Willie the Orphan, by the author 
of Lonely Lilly. Half Hours in 
the Great Deep, with too illus- 
trations. Fred Lawrence ; or, 
the W’orld College, by Margaret E. 
Teler. Frank Forrest ; or, Life 
of an Orphan Boy, by David M. 
Stone. Glenarvon ; or, Holidays 
at the Cottage. Gypsy Breynton, 
by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
Gypsy’s Cousin Joy, by Eliza- 
beth Stuart Phei.ps. Gypsy’s 
Sowing and Reaping, by Eliza- 
beth Stuart Phelps. Gypsy’s 
Year at the Golden Crescent, 
by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
Geofifry, the Lollard, by Fran- 
ces Eastwood. Kemptons ('I'he), 
by H. K. POTVViN. King’s 
Servants (The), by FIesba Stret- 
ton. Lillingstones of Lilling- 
stone, by Emma J. Worboise. 
Little Boots, bv Jennie Harri- 
son. Lucy’s Life Story, by the 
author ot Lonely Lilly. Lonely 
Lilly, by the author of Twice 
Found, etc. Little Nan ; or, a 
Living Remembrance, by the author 
of Lonely Lilly. Layman’s story 
(A); or, the Experience of John 
Laicus and His Wife m a Conntry 
Pari.sh, by Lyman Abbott. Minnie 
Carleton, by Mary Belle Bakt- 
BETT. Margaret, by C. C. Fraser 
Tytler, author of Jasmine Leigh. 
Nelly’s Dark Days, by Hesba 
Stretton. On Both Sides of 
the Sea ; a Story* of the Common- 
wealth and Restoration, by the 
author of the Schonberg-Cotta Family. 


Economical Libraries, continued — 

OldBackRoom (The), byjENNia 
Harrison. Paul and Christina, 
by Amelia E. Barr. Pollie and 
"Winnie; a Story of the Good Sa- 
maritan, by the author of Lonely 
Lilly, etc. Russell Family; (The), 
by Anna Hastings. Squire of 
Sandal Side, by Amelia E. Barr. 
Starling (The), by Norman Mac- 
Leod. Syrian Home Life, by 
Rev. it. H. J essup, D. D. Tom 
Burton ; or, the Better Way. 
Toil and Trust; or, the Life 
Story of Patty, by Mrs. E. L. Bal- 
four. Twice Found, by the 
author of Lonely; Lilly*. Victory 
of the Vanquished ; a Story of 
the First Century*, by the author of 
the Schonberg-Cotta Family. W^on- 
derful Life ; a Life of Christ, by 
Hesba Stretton. Wandering 
May, by the author of Lonely Lilly, 
etc. 


Economical Library, C. 40 

vols., i6mo. Sold in sets only, 

$18.50. 

Adventures in Patagonia, by 
Titus Coan. August and 
Elvie, by Jacob Abbott, At 
Any Cost, by Edward Garrett. 
Bede’s Charity, by Hesba Stret- 
ton. By Still Waters, by Ed- 
ward Garrett. Carola, bv Hesba 
Stretton, Castles with Wings, 
by Geo. Kringle. Daisy Ward’s 
"Works, by Mary W. McLain. 
Diary of Kitty Trevylyan, by 
the author of the Schonberg-Cotta 
Family. Family Fortunes, by 
Edward Garrett, Granville 
Valley, by Jacob Abbott. Half 
Hours in the Tiny World, 
with many illustrations. Half 
Hours in the Far North, with 
many illustrations. Her Object 
in Life, by Edward Garrett. 
Honeysuckle Cottage, by H, 
N. W. B, In Prison and Out, 
by Hesba Stretton. Jan Ven- 
der’s Wife, by Amelia Barr. 
Joan the Maid, by the author of 
the Schonberg-Cotta Family*. Judge 
Not ; or, Hester Power’s Girlhood. 
Little Brown Girl, by Esme 
Stuart. Little Florentine, by 
H. N. W. B. Letters from 
Egypt, by Miss Whately. Load 
of Chips, by H. N.W.B. Maiden 
and Married Life of Mary 
Powell, by Miss Manning. 
Nurse Bundle; Sequel to Polly 


DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. it 


Economical Libraries, contifiued — 

and I. One Year at Boarding 
School, by Agnes Phelps. Pavd 
and Margaret, by H. K. Potwin. 
Premiums Paid to Experi- 
ence, by Edward Garrett. Peter 
and Polly, by Marion Douglas. 
Polly and I, with many illustra- 
tions. Some Little People, by 
Geo. Kringle. Sophia and 
G-ypsy, by H. N. W. B. The 
Brownings, by Jane Gay Fuller. 
Three Martyrs, by the author 
of the Schdnberg - Cotta Family. 
Through a Needle’s Eye, by 
H ESBA Stretton. Twickenham, 
with many illustrations. Tony and 
His Harp, by H. N. W. B. Tim- 
my Top Boots, by H. N. W. B. 
Winifred Bertram, by the 
author of the Schonberg-Cotta Fam- 
ily. Women of Christendom, 
by the author of the Schonberg- 
Cotta Family. 


Economical Primary, No. 1. 

40 vols., i8mo. Fortne Infant 
Class. Every volume filled with 
pictures. Sold in sets only, 
$ 7 - 50 . 

Thornton’s Courage. Grey 
Wolf. Tom’s Little Maid. 
Lost in the Snow. Hal Foote’s 
Walnuts. Jerry Bright. Hor- 
ace Cole’s Accident. Dia- 
mond Pin. Who Pound Bob- 
by and His Mother. Lazy 
Roger. Picnic of Two. The 
Wreck. Dreadful Day. Two 
Verses. Rath’s Test. Jim. 
The Great Surprise. Uncle 
Ned’s Visit. The Rainy Day. 
Nelly’s Illness. Dick and 
Grace. Bobby Shafto. Fish- 
er Boy. Jack Greene. A 
Long Day. Uncle Dick’s 
Portfolio. A Winter Story. 
Book About Indians. Day in 
the Woods. Christmas at 
School. Tom’s Aquarium. 
A Wet Afternoon. Jack’s 
Lesson. Lost Dottie Pringle. 
A Children’s Party. Little 
Polks Songs. Little Nursery 
Songs. Toby’s Helpers. The 
Poacher’s Son. A Story of the 
Sea. 


Economical Primary, No. 2, 

for the Infant Class. 40 vols , 
i8mo. Each volume filled with 


Econo.mical Primaries, continued — 
pictures. Sold in sets only, 
l?7-50. 

Jim’s Mishap. Shaggy Dog. 
Winter by the Sea. Bessie’s 
Visit. Ben Derrick. Heed- 
less Harry. All the Greys. 
Rob. Johnson’s Rescue. Capt. 
Jack. Nettie Morgan. Hugh 
Giles. Chris at Grandpapa’s. 
Blocked Train. Miss Estelle. 
Uncle Jack’s Medicine. 
Whose Fault Was It? 
Elise. Poor Mrs. Bly. Uncle 
Dick’s Yacht. Katie’s Ad- 
venture. A Week at Grand- 
mamma’s. Reggie’s Christ- 
mas. Sidney the Fisherman. 
Nettles. Ruth’s Present. 
Grandmamma’s Surprise 
Party. The Purse of Gold. 
Reginald’s Vacation. Lottie’s 
Birthday. Dottie’s Bed- 
Quilt. Maggie’s Dream. The 
Lost Knife. Harry’s Garden. 
Stevie’s Visit. A Summer at 
Aunt Helen’s. How They 
Pound Pussy. Ralph’s Re- 
pentence. Trot. Tom and 
His Monkey. The Sailing 
Party. 

Edwards (Tryon, D.D.). The 
World’s Laconics ; or, the 
Best Thoughts of the Best 
Authors, in Prose and Poetry. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Eggleston, Edward and 
George Cary, and Lillie 
Eggleston Seelye. Famous 
American Indians. A series 
illustrative of Early American 
History. Each in one hand- 
some volume, illustrated with 
maps and engravings. Uni- 
formly bound. i2mo, cloth, 
per volume, $1.00. 

Tecumseh and the Shawnee 
Prophet, by Edward Eggleston 
and Lillie Eggleston Seelye. 
Red Eagle, by George Cary Eggle- 

STO.N. 

Pocahontas, by Edward Eggle- 
ston and Mrs. Seelye. 

Brandt and Red J acket, by the 
same. 


13 DODD, MEAD 6^ COMP ANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 


Eggleston’s Works, continued — 
Montezuma, by he same. 

[ These books deal with the most ro- 
mantic period of American History. I'e- 
cuniseh, the greate^t of the Shawnecs, 
was perhaps the greate-t genius of his 
race known in the annals of our coun- 
try. 1 'he Life of Red Eagle throws 
light on the Creek War which broke out 
in Alabama in 1813, and was finally 
brought to an end by the bloody battle of 
Tohopeka, fought by Jackson in 1814. 

In “ Montezuma ” the authors have 
told the ever-interesting story of the Az- 
tecs and their last emperor in language 
at once simple and attractive. In 
“Brandt and Red Jacket’’ we have 
again the thrilling accounts of the 
struggles of our forefathers in the Mid- 
dle Stales, while Pocahontas takes us to 
the first settlement of the Old Domin- 
ion.] 

Ellwan8:er (H. B.). The Bose 

— Its Cultivation, Varieties, etc., 
etc. i6mo, cloth, $1.25. 

[“ Mr. Eliwanger’s connection with 
'one of the largest nurseries in America, 
which has yearlj' imported the new va- 
rieties of merit as they^ have appeared 
and given them extensive cultivation, 
has placed unusual advantages within 
his reach, which he has successfully im- 
proved. In addition to the valued di- 
rections for cultivation — for planting, 
pruning, propagation, the treatment of 
diseases and insect enemies — the work 
is rendered particularly valuable for its 
classification, and for the full alphabet- 
ical and descriptive list of nine hundred 
and fifty-six varieties. We are glad to 
commend this work, which is the result 
of great care and much labor.” — Culti- 
vator and Country Gentleman?^ 

Etchings by French Artists. 

Ten Etchings by Detaille, Cas- 
anova, Martial, Jazet, Guinard, 
Delaunay, Cortazzo, etc. Folio, 
15x20. Cloth, full gold side. 
With descriptive text by G. W. 
H. Ritchie. $10.00. Fifty impres- 
sions on Japan paper, mounted, 
in portfolio, with text, $25.00. 

Farjeon (B. L.). Gantran ; or, 

the House of White Shad- 
ows. A Novel. i2mo, cloth, 
$1.00. 


Fenelon (Archbishop). Chris- 
tian Counsel and Spiritual 
Letters. i8mo, cloth, $i.oo. 

Fergusson (James). A His- 
tory of Architecture in all 
Countries, from the earliest 
times to the present day. Illus- 
trated. Uniform with Lubke’s 
History of Art. 2 vols., 8vo, 
with 1015 illustrations, half 
roan, $7.50 ; half morocco, 
$12.50. 

Finley (Martha). The Elsie 
Books. Per vol., $1.25. 14 

vols. in a neat box, i2mo, cloth, 

$17-50. 

Elsie Dinsmore. 

Elsie’s Girlhood. 

Elsie’s Holidays at Roselands. 
Elsie’s Womanhood. 

Elsie’s Motherhood. 

Elsie’s Children. 

Elsie’s Widowhood. 
Grandmother Elsie. 

Elsie’s Hew Relations. 

Elsie at Nantucket. 

The Two Elsies. 

Elsie’s Kith and Kin. 

Elsie’s Friends at Woodburn. 
A New Elsie Book. 

[“ The one cause of this author’s 
popularity among thoughtful people is 
that she never neglects to inculcate the 
doctrines of upright living and Christian 
integrity, and the charming stories of 
domestic life that she has given us are 
told in so delightful a manner that one 
becomes quite as interested in reading 
them as the more sensational hooks of 
the day.” — Detroit Commercial Ad- 
vertiser. 

The author of the Elsie Books is not 
a stranger to youthful readers, espe- 
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great favorite. Her stories are pure 
and good, and yet full of incident which 
interests and holds the attention, but 
does not unduly excite,^ Such books as 
this are healthful in their influence, and 
should be placed in the hands of young 
girls who are anxious to read something 
interesting.] ' ^ 

The Mildred Books. A Com- 
panion Series to the Elsie Books. 


DODD, MEAD COMP ANT S PUBLICATIONS. 13 


Finley’s Works, continiied — 

Per vol., $1.25. 7 vols. in box, 
$8.75. 

Mildred Keith. 

Mildred at Roselands. 

Mildred and Elsie. 

Mildred’s Married Life. 
Mildred at Home. 

Mildred’s Boys and Girls. 

A New Mildred Book. 

[“ In a sweet, simple strain the author 
tells the story of her characters, their 
romances, their jo^'s and their sorrows. 
Miss Finley portrays so beautiful a 
Christian spirit pervading the house- 
holds and individuals she represents, 
that religion through them seems very 
attractive .” — Christian 0/)server.'\ 

Casella.— A Tale of the Wal- 
denses. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Our Fred; or. Seminary Life at 
Thurston. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Old-Fashioned Boy. i2mo, 

$1.25. 

Wanted, a Pedigree. A Novel. 
Large i2mo, cloth, nearly 600 
pages, $1.25. 

Signing the Contract, and 
What it Cost. A Novel. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

[“ This story is original in plan, 
written in a natural tone, at many points 
extremely touching, and possessing in- 
terest for all those readers who like fic- 
tion which develops lessons of a highly 
spiritual -LiteraryWorld.^ 

The Thorn in the Nest. A 

Novel. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 


Fish (Henry C., D.D.). His- 
tory and Repository of Pul- 
pit Eloquence. — (Deceased 
Divines.) Two vols. in one. 
8vo. Over 1200 pages. Cloth, 
$3.00. 

Pulpit Eloquence of the Nine- 
teenth Century. 8vo, doth, 
with supplement containing ad- 
ditional discourses, $3.00, 


Freeman (Edward A.). A 
History of the Norman 
Conquest of England.— Its 

Causes and its Results. 6 vols., 
8vo, cloth, gilt tops, $20.00. 


Freer (Martha Walker), 
Henry the III., King of 
France and Poland. From 
numerous unpublished sources, 
including MSS., documents in 
the Bibliotheque Imperiale, and 
the archives of France, Italy, 
etc. By Martha Walker Freer, 
author of the “ Life of Mar- 
guerite d’Angouleme,” “ Eliza- 
beth de Valois and the Court 
of Philip 11 . ,” etc., etc. In 3 
vols., 8vo, $7.50. 


Fuller (Jane G.). Uncle 
John’s Flower Gatherers. 

A companion for the woods 
and fields. i6mo, cloth, 90 cts. 


Garrett ’ s (Edward) W orks. A 

new edition, bound in uniform 
style. i2mo, cloth, per vol., 
$1.00. The set in a box, 14 
vols.', $14.00. 

Doing and Dreaming. 

By Still Waters. 

Gold and Dross ; or, Hester 
Capel’s Inheritance. 

Crooked Places. A Story of 
Struggles and Triumphs. 
Premiums Paid to Experience. 

Incidents in my Business Life. 
The Dead Sin, and other 
Stories. 

The Occupations of a Hetired 
Life. 

The Crust and the Cake. 

The House by the Works. 
Family Fortunes. 

Her Object in Life. 

At Any Cost. 

Equal to the Occasion. 

John Winter. A Story of the 
Harvest. 

[” There is a quiet charm about the 
wruings of Edward Garrett, a simple 
purity of thought, a high, but unpre- 
tending range of sentiment, a tender 


14 DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 


Garrett’s Works, continued — 
piety without Phariseeism, an expres- 
sion and fulfillment, in fine, of cultured 
and modest Christianity, which is 
peculiarly satisfying to the soul in 
these times of worldly worry and 
worldly intensity.” — N. Y. Evening 
Mail. 

Mr. Garrett has done good service in 
giving these wholesome stories to the 
public. Without a word of preaching, 
It points unerringly to the right course, 
and not only young men and women, 
but older people, may learn many val- 
uable lessons from its silent teaching.] 

Gibbs (Alfred S.). Goethe’s 
Mother. Correspondence of 
Catharine Elizabeth Goethe 
with Goethe, Lavater, Wieland, 
Duchess of Saxe- Weimar, and 
others. Translated from the 
German, with the addition of 
Biographical Sketches and 
Notes by, Alfred S. Gibbs, and 
an Introductory Note by 
Clarence Cook. 8vo, cloth, 
$ 2 . 00 . 

[“The most conspicuous name 
among the mothers of literary men is 
that of Catharine Elizabeth Goethe. 
It was from her that her famous son 
derived the elements of his greatness. 
‘ This volume is made up of her cor- 
respondence with her son, Lavater, 
Wieland, and others. The addition of 
copious notes renders the work more 
nearly a biography than a simple com- 
pilation of letters. The atmosphere 
which one breathes in reading these 
familiar epistles is full of the most in- 
tense vitality, at once human and in- 
tellectual.’ ” — Boston Courier.'] 


Gilman (Arthur, M. A.). 
Shakespeare’s Morals. i2mo, 
$1.50. 

[“ This volume displays an intelli- 

f ent mind at work amid the riches of 
hakespeare collating and collecting 
kindred excellencies. The scheme of 
the book is an arrangement of careful 
selections under heads that comprehend 
moral teachings. Joined with these 
extracts are brief collateral readings 
and scriptural references. Thus we are 
offered,^ if not the whole, a fair and 
suggestive epitome of the utterances of 
Shakespeare on ethical and religious 
Boston Transcript,] 


Gladden (Rev. Washington). 
The Christian Way— 

Whither It Leads and How to 
Go On. i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

G 0 s s e (Edmund). From 
Shakespeare to Pope. An 

inquiry into the Causes and 
Phenomena of the rise of Classi- 
cal Poetry in England. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.75- 

Gould (Baring). History of 
Germany. Octavo, cloth, 
$2.00. See “ Kingdoms of the 
World.” 

Goulding (F. R.). The Young 
Marooners. With introduction 
by Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle 
Remus), with 8 double illus- 
trations. i2mo, $1.25. 

Marooner’s Island. With six 
double - page illustrations by 
W. C. Jackson. Uniform with 
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The Woodruff Stories. 

Sapelo — Narcooche — Saloquah. 
A new edition of these entertain- 
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double-page illustrations by W. 
C. Jackson. 3 vols., i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00 each. 

Greely (Gen. A. W.). 

American Weather. A popu- 
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of the weather, including chap- 
ters on Hot and Cold Waves, 
Blizzards, Hail Storms and 
Cyclones, etc., etc. Illustrated 
with engravings and twenty- 
four charts. By Gen. A. W. 
Greely, Chief Signal Officer of 
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Griffith (Cecil). Victory Bean. 

A Novel. i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 


DODD, MEAD 6- COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 15 


Guernsey (Lucy Ellen). Agnes 
Warrington’s Mistake. 

i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

Hall (John, D.D.). G^s 

Word through Preaching. 

Being the Yale Lectures for 
1875. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

Papers for Home Heading. 

i2mo, cloth. With Portrait, 
$1.25. 

Questions of the Day. i 2 mo, 

cloth, I1.25. 

Familiar Talks to Boys. 

i6mo, cloth, 50 cents. 

[“ The discussions in God’s Word 
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perience. There is a vigorous sense 
in the author’s thought and style. He 
strikes each subject with remarkable 
precision and force. The effect pro- 
duced upon hearer and reader is most 
wholesome.” — IVaichman and Re- 
Jlector.'] 

HaUvy (Ludovic), of L’ Acade- 
mic Fran9aise. L’Abb6 Con- 
stantin. Illustrated by Made- 
laine Lemaire. De Luxe edi- 
tion, printed in Paris from the 
original photogravures, with an 
English translation of the 
novel. 4to, about ^15.00. 

Harland (Marion). A Gallant 

Fight. A new novel. i 2 mo, 
cloth, $1.50* 

Harrison* (Jennie). Little 
Boots. l2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

The Old Back-Hoom. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.25. 

Heroes of Chivalry, being the 
Life of the Chevalier Bayard 
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Bound in one volume of nearly 
700 pages, with many illustra- 
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Hesse Wartegg (Chevalier de). 
Tunis. The Land and the Peo- 
ple. With 22 illustrations, i2mo.. 
cloth, 1 1. 75. 

[”M. Hesse-Wartegg possesses a sim- 
ple, straightforward method of descrip- 
tion, good literary style and excellent 
judgment. 

” The narrative opens with a cursory 
glance at the political history of the Re- 
gency from the seventh century down 
to the present time. It is shown that 
though the native governing powers 
have changed many times and the coun- 
try finally fallen under foreign domin- 
ion, its old-time grandeur and wealth 
replaced by squalor and poverty, the 
people throughout have remained the 
same, and preserved the primitive orig- 
inality of their customs and usages.”— 
Art Interchan£^e.'] 

Holder (Chas. Frederick). A 
Frozen Dragon, and Other 
Tales. A Story Book of Natural 
History for Boys and Girls. 
Illustrated by J. C. Beard, D. C. 
Beard, J. M. Nugent, and 
others, from sketches by the 
author. By C. F. Holder, au- 
thor of “ The Ivory King.” 
‘‘ Marvels of Animal Life,” ” El- 
ements of Zoology,” “A Strange 
Company,” “ Living Lights,” 
etc. 


Hood(Rev.E. Paxton). Lamps, 
Pitchers, and Trumpeis. 

Lectures on the Vocations of the 
Preacher. Illustrated by Anec- 
dotes, Biographical, Historical, 
and Lucidatory of every order 
of Pulpit Eloquence, from the 
great Preachers of all ages. 
Two vols., i2mo, cloth, $2.00. 

Howson (J, Sy D.D.). The 
CharacterofSt. Paul. i2mo, 
cloth. 

[” A more eloquent tribute to the 
character of the great apostle, and one 
so well adapted to the student and the 
general reader alike, could not be de- 
sired. Theological students cannot 
afford to lose the ad' untages which a 


i6 DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 


Howson (J. S., D.D.), continued— 
careful study of this book will afford ; 
and those who do not care for theology, 
or perhaps for religion even, if they read 
a few pages will be strongly induced to 
read all.”— iV. V. Times.] 

International Cyclopedia. (See 
last page of this Catalogue.) 


Jackson (Sheld on, D.D.). Alas- 
ka, and Missions on the 
North Pacific Coast. Illus- 
trated, i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 

The volume gives interesting and 
valuable information in regard to the 
physical features of the country, popu- 
lation, customs and beliefs of its people, 
etc. The illustrations add much to the 
value of the hook.”— Journai 0/ Edu- 
cation i\ 

James (F. L., F.R.G.S.). The 
Wild Tribes of the Soudan. 

An account of travel and sport 
chiefly in the Base Country ; 
being personal experiences and 
adventures during three winters 
spent in the Soudan. 8vo. With 
3 maps and 40 full-page illus- 
trations, engraved for the book 
from photographs taken on the 
spot. Handsomely printed and 
bound, cloth, $2.25. 

[” The country traversed was that 
now occupied by ElMahdi, the False 
Prophet, the real starting point being 
that Suakin of which we now daily read 
so much. Mr. James writes in a manly, 
straightforward style. He has much of 
interest to relate, and he tells his story 
in a fresh and invigorating manner.” — 
Good Literature.] 

James (Rev. William). Grace 
for Grace. The Letters of 
the Rev. William James on the 
Higher Christian Life. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.25. 

[“ This book is composed of letters 
the theme of which is the life of God in 
the soul, as it is imparted, nourished, 
strengthened and perfected by his 
abounding grace. They treat of the 
most intricate and vital relations of the 
believer with. Clu-ist ; of the Redeemer 


James (Rev. William), continued — 
into the heart by a simple and appro- 
priating faith ; of His sufficiency and 
power, when thus received, to free the 
soul from the sense of condemnation 
and from the intolerable and hopeless 
struggle^ for self-deliverance, and to es- 
tablish it in peace, jo3^ and victory of 
an assured and realized salvation.” — 
Christian Statesman.] 

Jay (William, D.D.). Prayers 
for the Use of Families. By 

the author of “ Morning and 
Evening Exercises,” etc. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

Jessup (Henry H., D.D.). Mis- 
sionary in Syria. 

Women of the Arabs. 15 full- 

page illustrations. i2mo, cloth, 

$1.25. 

Syrian Home-Life. Illustrated. 
i6mo, cloth, 90 cents. 

Johnston (Rossiter). The War 
of 1812 between the United 
States and Great Britain. 

The Old French War. 

Each one vol., i2mo, $1.25. See 

“ Minor Wars.” 


Keats ( J ohn). The Letters and 
Poems of John Keats, re- 
printed from the edition edited 
by Lord Houghton, with me- 
moir by John Gilmer Speed ; 
and Letters, many of which have 
never before been published. 
With illustrations. 3 vols , post 
8vo. Printed from type, by De 
Vinne. Only 350 copies printed, 
each copy numbered and signed, 
as follows: 4 copies on vellum; 
12 copies on China paper; 55 
copies on Whatman paper; 275 
copies on Holland paper. 

A few of the Holland copies 
may be had at $15.00. 

[“ The work is in three volumes, of 
which one is devoted to the letters and 
two to the poems. The volume of lettcK 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 17 


Keats (John), continued — 
has been prepared by the grand nephew 
of the poet, John Gilmer Speed, Esq., 
and will contain, in addition to those 
hitherto published, anuinber written by 
Keats to his brother George, in the 
United States. These were, to a con- 
siderableextent, memoranda of his daily 
doings, jotted down from time to time, 
so as to be ready for any chance vessel 
that might be sailing, and are full of 
most interestingreferences to his friends 
as well as expressions of his own feel- 
ings and aims, such as would only be 
made to those most closely related to 
him. None of these American letters 
have ever been published complete and 
unaltered, and many of them now ap- 
pear in print for the first time. An in- 
troduction to the poems has also been 
written by Mr. Speed. The text of the 
poems is that prepared by Lord Hough- 
ton, whose notes have been retained. 
The volumes contain portraits of the 
three brothers, John, George, and Tom, 
reproduced in color from the originals 
in oil by Severn. In addition to the 
three portraits mentioned, there is an 
etching of the poet’s grave, by Sabin ; 
a fac-simile of the Original draft of one 
of the author’s smaller poems, showing 
his erasures and emendations ; the sil- 
houette of Fanny Brawne, the head of 
Keats drawn by Severn in his last ill- 
ness, the drawing from life by Severn, 
and a reproduction of the life mask by 
Hayden .” — Critic 


Kingdoms of the World. A 

Series of Popular Histories, all 
brought down to the present 
time. Each in i vol., 8vo, with 
frontispiece. Cloth, extra, per 
vol., $2.00. 

Italy. ) ^ 

Russia. ( J, John S. C. Abbott. 
Austria, i 

Prussia, j 

Turkey. By Edson L. Clark. 
Egypt. By J. C. McCoan. 
G-ermany. By Baring Gould. 

Kmdersley(Ed’wardCockburn). 
The very Joyous, Pleasant, 
and Kefreshing History of 
the Feats, Exploits, Tri- 
umphs and Achievements of 


Kindersley (Edward C.), continued— 

the Good Knight, without 
Fear and without Reproach, 
the Gentle Lord de Bayard. 

Set forth in English by Edward 
C ocKBURN Kindersley. With 
many illustrations. 

See “ Heroes of Chivalry.” 
Q'uarto, $2.50. 

[” No book that has been published 
so far this year begins to approach this 
delectable history in romantic interest. 
. . . A book which all manly boys 

will be delighted with, and to which 
they will return again and again.” — 
Mail. 

” The book combines the heroic feat- 
ures of the ‘ King Arthur ’ with the 
historical value of the ‘Froissart.’ As 
a picture of society in the sixteenth 
century, and a narrative of some of its 
most stirring events, its value is very 
great. . . . 'I'horoughly readabJe 

for boj’s, and at the same lime possess- 
ing a racy flavor of antiquity.” — Th« 
Nation. 

“ No handsomer book for boys has 
been brought out this season. The story 
cannot fail to interest lads of spirit, and 
they will unconsciously gain from it a 
lofty ideal of manly character. There 
are many illustrations, for the most 
part very good .” — Christian Union.~\ 


Kingsley (Henry). Austin 
Elliott. A Novel. i2mo, cloth, 
$1.00. 

Leighton Court. A Novel. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Ravenslioe. A Novel. i2mo. 
cloth, $1.00. 

The Recollections of GeolGfry 
Hamlyn. A Novel. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

The Hillyars and the Burtons. 

A Novel. i2mo, cloth, |i.oo. 


Ladd (Horatio 0.). History 
of the War with Mexico. 

i2mo, cloth, $1.25. See “Minor 
Wars.” 


1 8 DODD, MEAD COMPANrS PUBLICATIONS. 


Land and Sea Library. Origi- 
nal vois., profusely illustrated. 
i6mo, cloth, $2.50. 

The Ocean. 

The Builders of the Sea. 

The Frozen iWorth. 

Ancient Egypt. 

India. 

Lee, Edmund. 

Dorothy Wordsworth. A Story 
of a Sister's Love. i2mo, cloth, 
Si-25- 

Loring (W. W.). A Confed- 
erate Soldier in Egypt. By 

W. W. Loring, late Colonel in 
U. S. Army, Major-General in 
the Confederate Service, and 
F^reek Pasha and General in 
the Army of the Khedive of 
Egypt. I vol., &VO, cloth, with 
47 illustrations, $3.50. 

Lubke (Wilhelm). Outlines 
of the History of Art. A 

new translation from the Sev- 
enth German Edition. Edited 
wdth Notes, by Clarence Cook, 
in 2 vols., royal 8vo, with 
nearly 600 illustrations. 

Cloth, gilt top $14.00 

Half morocco 19.00 

Half Levant 22.50 

Student’s Edition, com- 
plete. Two vols., 8vo, 
half roan 7.50 

Half morocco 12.50 

[“ In the new interest in art, awakf n- 
ed in this country, these volumes ought 
to be the piirner of our artists and art 
admirers. There is no other work of 
equal value accessible to the reader ; 
and the numerous illustrations make it 
easy to grasp the principles, and follow 
the development of the branches of Art 
— Architecture, Sculpture, and Paint- 
ing.” — New York Indepe7ident. 

“The_ great success of his book in 
Europe is partly due to the fact that it 
is the only one of its kind from which 
those who aim at general culture can 
obtain a sufficient idea of one of the 
broadest fields of human activity, con- 


Lubke (Wilhelm), continued — 
cerning which every one nowadays is 
expected to know something.” — 
Charies C. Perkitis. 

” An accepted standard of informa- 
tion, . . . astonishingly full, with- 

out reaching proportions which might 
make it generally impractical ; scrupu- 
lously exact, and illustrated with a rare 
instinct of selection.” — N. Y. Tribune. 

“ It is remarkably free from errors 
and marked by sound judgment upon 
the relative merits of art schools and 
artists. It has the great merit of free- 
dom from bias and sentimentalism, and 
forms a welcome contrast to the unciit- 
ical and half-digested books upon art, 
which are daily issued from English and 
American presses.” — Literary Wo7-ld. 

” A vast area has been traversed, yet 
no part of the ground has been neglected 
or carelessly scanned. The survey has 
been comprehensive, but the impres- 
sions gained and the judgments ex- 
pressed have been clear and competent. 
The illustrations are profuse and ele- 
gant, and the book is one that art lovers 
may well covet.” — Chicago Tribmie.^ 

Lucy (H. W.). Gideon Eleyce. 

A Novel. i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 


Maberly (J.). The Print Col- 
lector. An introduction to the 
knowledge of Ancient Prints, 
with suggestions as to the mode 
of collecting. Edited with an 
introduction and notes by Rob- 
ert Hoe, Jr. I vol., large 8vo, 
with illustrations, $2.50. 

[“ The book commends itself alone 
without comment to all collectors and 
lovers of prints, and it is so wholly with- 
out rivals in its comprehensiveness and 
accuracy that its publication makes it 
at once a necessary part of every col- 
lector's library, while as a history of 
engraving and kindred arts it is invalu- 
able to all classes of intelligent readers.” 
— N. Y. E7)eni7tg Post ^ 

Main (David). Three Hun- 
dred English Sonnets. 

Chosen and Edited with a few 
Notes, by David M. Main, Edi- 
tor of “A Treasury of English 
Sonnets.” Limited edition on 
large paper, only loo copies 
printed, $11.00. 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 19 


Mainstone’s Housekeeper. A 

Novel. 121110, cloth, $1.00, 

Manning (Anne). Maiden 
and Married Life of Mary 
Powell, i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Cherry and Violet. i6mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

The Household of Sir Thomas 
More. i6nio, cloth, $1.00, 

The Paire Gospeller, Anne 
. Askew. i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Jacques Bonneval; A Tale of 
the Huguenots. i6mo, cloth, $1. 

The Spanish Barber; A Tale 
of the Bible in Spain. i6mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

Markham (Richard). Colon- 
ial Days. Being Stories and 
Ballads for young Americans as 
recounted by five boys and five 
girls in “Around the Yule 
Log,” “Aboard the Mavis,” 
and “ On the Edge of Winter.” 
Quarto, with nearly 250 illus- 
trations, handsomely bound, 
cloth, $2.50. 

[“ The design and execution of this 
work are admirable. It is entertain- 
ing, instructive, well written and well 
printed. In all respects the book is a 
positive success .” — Chicago Appeal. 

” Mr. Markham has produced a capi- 
tal, entertaining book for young read- 
ers, and carried out cleverly a clever 
idea .” — Evening Mail, N. Y. 

“ A merry set of boys and girls incur 
adventures by sea and land, listen to 
Revolutionary and other historical tales, 
and, what is the crowning merit of Mr, 
Markham, behave and talk with great 
naturalness and vivacity.” — Nationi] 

History of King Philip’s W ar. 

i2mo, cloth, $1.25. See “Mi- 
nor Wars.” 

Chronicle of the Cid. Edited 
by Richard Markham, 4to, 
cloth, illustrated, $1.00. See 
“ Heroes of Chivalry.” 

[“ This fascinating romance, for ages 
the delight of both old and young, is 


Markham’s Works, continued — 
given here in Southey’s fine version, 
interspersed wit’n selections from other 
English writers of eminence who have 
dealt with the same subject. It is pre- 
pared for young readers, is printed in 
large and clear tj'pe with many hand- 
some illustrations, and is in every way 
a tempting form in which to enjoy this 
stirring and thriliing story of the days of 
chivalry ,” — Boston Evening Gazette. 

” Mr. Markham has availed himself 
with admirable judgment of the vari- 
ous chronicles of the Cid, and has pro- 
duced a book of rare value, surpassing 
in interest the wildest romance.” — 
Boston Home Journal 

Marriage Certificates. 

Printed from a beautiful and 
chaste steel engraving. On 
plate paper, per dozen, $1.00. 
On bank-note paper, per dozen, 
$r.oo. 

McCoan ( J. C,). Egypt As It Is. 

A new edition. 8vo, cloth, $2.00. 
See “ Kingdoms of the World.” 

[The History of Egypt, by J. C. 
McCoan, should properly be called ” A 
History cf Egypt in Recent Times,” 
especially from 1840 to 1880, as it deals 
largely in all the important efforts made 
by the Khedives Mehemet Ali, Said 
Pasha, and Ismail in their efforts to be- 
come independent of Turkey, and to 
make Egypt a prosperous and powerful 
kingdom. It is a very able and com- 
plete account of the financial condition 
of Egypt ; of the occurrences and de- 
crees that made France and England 
the directors of the government for 
some years ; a full statement of the re- 
lations of Egypt to the Porte ; the ad- 
ministration of the government ; an ac- 
count of the Suez Canal, etc. The 
reading of it will give one a much bet- 
ter idea of the news we are daily re- 
ceiving from Egj'pt and the Soudan.] 

McDonald (George). A Double 
Story. i6mo, doth, 75 cents. 

[“ Tells of two little girls, one the 
child of a king, the other of a shepherd, 
both spoiled by their indulgent parents, 
and both taken from their homes by 
the Wise Woman to be led, if possible, 
to see themselves as they were seen by 
others, andinduced to abandon their self- 
ishness and illnaturefor abetter and hap- 
pier way of life .” — Boston Tra 7 iscriptl\ 


20 DODD, MEAD COMPANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 


McLain (Mary W.\ Baisy 
Ward’s Work. i6mo, illus- 
trated, 75 cents. 

McLeod (Norman, D.B.). The 
Starling’. A Scotch Story. 
i2mo, cloth, $1.00. 

Character Sketches. Includ- 
ing “ Wee Davie,” “ Billy But- 
tons,” etc., etc. i6mo, cloth, 
illustrated. 

Meade (L. T.). How It All 
Came Around. i2mo, cloth, 
$ 1 . 00 . 

Meye (Henry). Stone Sculp- 
tures of Copdn and Quiri- 

gua. With descriptive text by 
Dr. Julius Schmidt. With 2o 
plates. Folio, half morocco, 
$ 20 . 00 . 

[The sculptured monoliths of Copdn 
and Quirigua, reproduced in the plates, 
rank indisputably with the most inter- 
esting and noteworthy monuments of 
tropical America. They clearly betray 
the end for which they were produced 
— to display', embodied in stone, to the 
population settled in these regions, and 
to hand down to after-generations the 
religious ideas and traditions which 
reigned in the spiritual life of these 
people. The number of places in Cen- 
tral America which at the present day 
attract attention by the presence of 
these monolith statues is by no means 
large — that is, if we look for an assem- 
blage of many such statues on one spot. 
In most of the better-known collections 
of ruins, the statues occur singly, or 
else, as in the case of Santa Lucia 
Cosiiinalhiialpa, the sculptured figures 
are represented exclusively by reliefs.] 

Mimpriss (Robert). The Gos- 
pels iu Harmony. Having 
the texts of the Four Evange- 
lists in parallel columns, with 
notes, references and charts. 
Pocket edition. Small type. 

Paper $o.6o 

i6mo edition. Large type, 

cloth 1.25 


Minor Wars of the United 
States. A series of Popular 
Histories, uniform with the 
Pioneer and Patriot and Am- 
erican Indian Series. Each i 
vol., i2mo, fully illustrated and 
attractively bound in cloth. 
Per vol., $1.25. 

1. The War of 1812. By Rossiter 
Johnson. 

2. The Old French War. By 

Rossiter Johnson. 

3. The War With Mexico. By 
H. O. Ladd. 

4. King Philip’s War. By Rich- 
ard Markham. 

[“Johnson’s ‘ War of 1812’ gives a 
clear, succinct and trustworthy account 
of the war and ought to be widely cir- 
culated and generally read.’’ — Chicago 
Tribune. 

“ Markham’s ‘ King Philip’s War,’ 
is a plain unvarnished tale, a collation 
of established facts put in a very earn- 
est, straightforward manner. The early 
chroniclers have been freely drawn upon 
by the author, and the book is a very 
compact, comprehensive and reliable 
history of some of the most stirring 
times in our New England life.” — 
Boston Post. 

“Johnson’s ‘ Old French War,’ gives 
the story in a plain, lively manner sure 
to hold the interest of the reader and 
to leave a vivid impression of the stir- 
ring and thrilling events upon his 
mind.” — Boston Home Journal. 

“Mr. Ladd’s ‘War with Mexico’ 
deals with the subject in the clearest 
and most satisfactory way we have ever 
seen it treated.” — Satzirday Evening 
Post.] 

MitcheU (Lucy M.). A His- 
tory of Ancient Sculpture. 

Imperial 8vo. With 295 wood 
engravings in the text by some 
of the most skilled artists of 
this country and Europe, and 
6 full-page photogravures pre- 
pared by Frisch, of Berlin. Ele- 
gantly printed, bound in cloth. 


Gilt tops $12. 50 

Half morocco 18.00 

Full morocco 20.00 


Student’s Edition. History 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 


21 


Mitchell’s Works, conthiued— 

of Sculpture. A History of 
Ancient Sculpture, with 295 
wood engravings in the text by 
some of the most skilled artists 
of this country and Europe. . 2 
vols., half roan, $7.50. 

Selections from Ancient 
Sculpture. Twenty heliotype 
plates, printed in Berlin in the 
highest style of the art from 
original negatives taken ex- 
pressly for Mrs. Mitchell, and 
intended to accompany her 
book. With descriptive text. 
In portfolio. Folio, $4.00. 

[“ Our author has brought to her 
stately task a thorough understanding 
of her subject, an exquisite modesty 
and long years of thoughtful travel in 
lands where art was cradled and where 
its greatest glories were achieved.” — 
Chicago Tribune. 

“ One of the most valuable contri- 
butions so far made to the history of 
art. Mrs. Mitchell treats of the pro- 
ductions of the sculptor’s chisel in con- 
nection with all the different phases of 
life — religious, political, social and 
aesthetic — to whose service they were 
devoted. Much light is thrown upon 
ancient art by a study of the institu- 
tions and history of the ancient peoples, 
and conversely, the study of all art- 
products enables us to reach a belter 
understanding of the life and times of 
the people among whom they originated. 
The work will at once be accorded a 
place among the classics in art litera- 
ture.” — N. Y. lVorld.'\ 

Moffat ( Jas. C., D.D.), Professor 
of Church History in Princeton 
Theological Seminary. 

A Comparative History of 
Religions. Two vols. , i2mo, 
cloth. Vol. I. Ancient Script- 
ures. Vol. H. Later Scriptures. 
2 vols. in one. $2.50. 

Mosby (Johns.), late Col. of the 
C.S.A. Mosby’sWar Reminis- 
cences. 8vo, with 10 double- 
page illustrations by W. C. 
Jackson. $1.75. 


Munroe (Kirke). The Golden 
Days of ’49. A Tale of the 
California Diggings. By Kirke 
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ingo Feather,” “Wakulla,” 
“ Derrick Sterling.” 8vo. With 
six full-page illustrations by W. 
C. Jackson. 

New Testament. 1st. The Re- 
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$1.00. 

The Old and the New Versions 

Compared. 

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1004 pages, well printed and 
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Niebuhr (Barthold George). 
Greek Hero Stories, i rans- 
lated from the German of Prof. 
Niebuhr, author of “History of 
Rome,” by Benjamin Hoppin. 
With 12 full-page illustrations 
by Augustus Hoppin. ibrno, 
cloth, 1*11.00. 

Nordhoff (Charles). Man-of- 
War Life. i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

The Merchant Vessel. i6mo, 
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Whaling and Fishing. i6mo, 
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Sailor Life on Man-of-War and 
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Several hundred illustrations. 
4to, cloth, $2.50. 

[“ There is not a boy in America, 
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22 DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 


Northwest Coast of America. 
Being Results of Recent 
Ethnological Researches 

from the collections of the 
Royal Museum at Berlin. Pub- 
lished by the Directors of the 
Ethnological Department. 
Translated from the German. 
With 13 plates, 5 of ^vhich are 
in colors. Folio, half mor- 
occo, $20.00. 

Nott (J. Eortun^). Wild Ani- 
mals. Illustrated by Pen and 
Camera. With 40 illustrations 
from nature made expressly 
for the work. 4to. 

Ormshy (John). The Ingen- 
ious Gentleman Don Quix- 
ote, of La Mancha. By Mi- 
guel De Cervantes Saavedra. 
Translated with introduction 
and notes. 4 vols., i2mo, 
cloth, $6.00. 

Olyphant (Mrs.). Sir Tom. A 

Novel. i2mo, cloth, $r.oo. 

Parker (Jane Marsh). The 
Midnight Cry. A Novel, by 
Jane Marsh Parker. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

Pattison (Mrs. Mark). The Re- 
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With 19 illustrations on Steel. 
8vo, 2 vols., $7.50. 

Pepys (Samuel). Pepys’ Diary. 
The Diary and Correspondence 
of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., 
from the cypher in the Pepys- 
ean Library, with a life and 
notes by Richard Lord Bray- 
brooke, deciphered with ad- 
ditional notes by Rev. Mynors 
Bright, M.A., President and 
Senior Fellow of Magdalen 
College, Cambridge. 

Library Edition. 10 vols., 


Pepys’ Diary, continued — 
i6mo. Well printed and sub- 
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[“ It is the book of books to dip into 
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in business and society, in the world of 
scandal and intrigue, in art, science and 
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the England, or rather the London, of 
the last days of the Rump and the first 
nine years of the Restoration as in the 
unique diurnal jottings of this prince of 
gossips and most indefatigable of re- 
porters.” — Harper's Magazine 


Perelaer (M. T. H.). Ran Away 
From the Dutch ; or, Borneo 
from South to North. Trans- 
lated from the Dutch by Mau- 
rice Blok, and adapted by A. 
P. Mendes. With ten full-page 
illustrations. 8vo, $2.25. 


Peters (W. T., and Clinton). 
The Children of the Week. 

By William Theodore Peters, 
with upwards of four-score il- 
lustrations by Clinton Peters. 
4to, cloth, $3.00. 


Phelps (Elizabeth Stuart) 

Gypsy Breynton. 

Gypsy’s Cousin Joy. 

Gypsy’s Sowing and Reaping. 
Gypsy’s Year at tile Golden 
Crescent. 

Comprising the Gypsy Stories, 
4 vols., i6mo, cloth. Each, $1.00. 


Rainsford(Rev.W.S.).Sermons 
Preached in St. George’s. 

i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY'SPUBLICATIONS. 23 


Rawlinson (Professor George). 
Five Great Monarchies of 
the Ancient Eastern World- 

Three vols., 8vo, cloth, gilt 
tops, maps, and nearly 600 illus- 
trations, $9.00. Half morocco, 
$16.00. 

The Sixth Great Monarchy 

(Parthia). i vol., 8vo, with 
maps and illustrations, cloth, 
gilt tops, $3.00. Half morocco, 
$5.00. 

The Seventh Great Monarchy 

(The Sassaneanor New Persian 
Empire). 2 vols., with maps 
and illustrations, cloth, gilt 
tops, $6.00. Half morocco, 
$11.00. 

The History of Ancient 
Egypt, 2 vols.,8vo, with nu- 
merous illustrations, cloth, 
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Student’s Edition of Rawlin- 
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The Ancient Monarchies, 

6 vols. in 5 $6.25 

Ancient Egypt, 2 vols. . . . 3.00 

P‘One cannot turn to the pages of 
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out ever-growing wonder. It is a 
standing monument of one of the 
most marvellous of modern achieve- 
ments. Almost the entire contents 
of these large and well-filled volumes, 
replete with information respecting 
the famous monarchies of ancient 
Asia, represent a positive addition to 
historical knowledge made within the 
present generation. The great em- 
pires of the East were but a few years 
since little but empty names. Some 
vftgue stories survived of the magnifi- 
cence of their capitals and of_ the 
grandeur and exploits of a few kings, 
and the rest was a total blank. And 
now to our amazement we behold 
these empires, which had fallen to 
decay one after another, before the 
father of history began his gossiping 


Rawlinson’s Works, continued— 
narrative, rescued from the oblivion of 
ages, and we are set face to face with 
the long-buried forms of extinct cir- 
ilization .” — Christian Unionl\ 

Reiss (W. and Stilbel A.). The 
Necropolis of Ancon iu 
Peru. A series of illustrations 
of the civilization and the in* 
dustries of the empire of the 
Incas, being the results of ex- 
cavations made on the spot ; 
published with the aid of the 
general administratiou of the 
Royal Museums of Berlin. 
Complete in fourteen parts, 
folio, with ten plates in each 
part, printed in colors. Each 
part, $7-50. 

[“ This work is monumental in 
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have never seen anything finer in 
chromo-lithography, and the illustra- 
tions have all the appearance of being 
faithful reproductions of the originals.” 
— London Times J\ 

Rembrandt’s Etchings. Fifty 
of the most notable etchings of 
Rembrandt, reproduced in 
Paris by the photogravure pro- 
cess ; with biography of Rem- 
brandt, and descriptive and 
historical notes to each pic- 
ture, by Chas. B. Curtis. Folio, 
vellum, with elegant design in 
gold, about $25.00. 


Robinson ( J.). Ferns in Their 
Homes and Ours. With eight 
chromo - lithographs of rare 
ferns and many other plates 
and illustrations. i2mo, cloth, 

$1.50* 

Roe (Mary A.). Forging their 
Chains. A Novel. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

A Long Search, A Novel. 
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£4 DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS, 


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riers Burned Away. i2mo, 
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What Can She Do 2 i2mo, 
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Birthday Mottoes, from the wrlt- 
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E. P. Roe’s Works, continued — 

Success with Small Fruits. 

Square 8vo, beautifully illus- 
trated, $2.50. 

[Without a Home. — “ The ultimate 
design of the story is to trace the 
origin and growth, and exhibit the 
pernicious resulis of the _ morphia 
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at times powerfully and dramatically, 
portrayed its influence to wither and 
destroy manhood and to wreck the 
happiness of the family. Q he har- 
rowing incidents which are the con- 
sequence of the evil are not so osten- 
tatiously exhibited as to be revolting, 
but are ingeniously distributed over a 
story that has a substantial and inde- 
pendent interest of its own.” — Harper's 
Magazine. 

Near to Nature’s Heart. — “His 
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a limited experience of life, and none 
of society ; but her artless character 
combines a pleasure of noble principle, 
womanly devotion, and high-souled 
conduct, which is rarely found among 
the fruits of the choicest culture.” — 
Neiv York Tribune. 

From Jest to Earnest.— “ His 
plots are never commonplace. The 
change in Lottie’s character is well 
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and artistic skill which we do not 
often find in the so-called religious 
wCfveXs."— Harper's Magazitie. 

A Day of Fate. — “ It is a love 
story, pure and simple, of the type 
that belongs to no age or clime or 
school, because it is the story of the 
love that has been common to hu- 
manity, wherever it has been lifted 
above the level of the brutes.” — Ne^v 
York Observer, 

Barriers Burned Away. — “W e 
accord a hearty commendation to this 
work. The narrative is vigorous, 
often intense, but rarely if ever melo- 
dramatic. Its language is usually no 
less chaste than forcible and impres- 
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tion and description which is not met 
with every day in the best of writers 
of popular fiction.” — D r. Ripley, in 
the New York Tribune. 

Opening A Chestnut Burr. — “The 
character of the selfish, morbid, cyni- 
cal hero, and his gradual transforma- 
tion under the influence of the sweet 
and high-spirited heroine, are portrayed 
with a masculine firmness which is near 
akin to power, and some of the conver* 


DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 25 


E. P. Roe’s Works, continued — 

sationsare animated and admirable.” — 
Atlantic Monthly. 

A Face Illumined. — “The author 
does not, as is often the case, make 
the moral design an excuse for liter- 
ary shortcomings. His characters are 
stamped with a strong individuality, 
and d'-picted with a naturalness that in- 
dicates a keen student of human nature 
and moderii life.” — Boston Traveler. 

His Sombre Rivals. — “ A strong 
story. A study of love and of war ; 
a tale of army service during the 
Rebellion, and of the home life that 
waited so anxiously on it. It is a 
study, too, of love and suffering, and 
an argument against atheism, but not a 
controversial one — the story itself is the 
arg u men t . ” — Ph iladelph ia Inqu irer. ] 

He Fell in Love with his Wife. — 
“ The more I think over the book the 
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written the best American novel that 
has been published this year.”— 
Hawthorne, in the N. V. IVorld. 

N.ature’s Serial Story. — “Mr. 
Roe has walked with us through 
happy valleys where peace and con- 
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song of the bird and the merry jest of 
the reaper, and watch the alternate 
shadow and sunshine that dim and 
glorify the human heart.” — Philadel- 
phia Record. 

“ The chief elements of Mr. Roe’s 
popularity as a novelist are a very exact 
understanding of the habits of thought 
of the great majority, sympathy with 
the ordinary passions and sentiments, 
respect for whatever is just and decor- 
ous, and, lastly, the art of telling a 
simple story in a simple and effective 
manner.” — Nezv York Tribune. 

The Earth Trembled. — “The 
latest novel by E. P. Roe, who is 
the most papular American novelist, 
is one combining all his best character- 
istics. The story involv< s much of the 
war period, and is a strong and fascin- 
ating love story. There is a high moral 
tone and a sympathetic fervor to Mr. 
Roe’s writing that is always appreci- 
ated.” — Boston Evening Traveller. 

Driven Back to Eden. — “ E. P. 
Roe is perhaps never better than 
when descrihing country life, for which 
he has a genuine enthusiasin ; and 
his ' Driven back to Eden ’ is per- 
fectly free from sensationalism. The 
story is fully illustrated, and contains 
enough adventure to easily carry off the 


E. P. Roe’s Works, continued — 
details of practical life, which the auth- 
or gives with an air of authority that 
can only arise from experience.” — 
Boston Courier. 

An Original Belle, — “The de- 
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war and the lurid picture of the draft 
riots in New York are worth read- 
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written is so vivid and dramatic as his 
sketch of the three terrible days in New 
York when the mob ruled the city, 
sacked the colored orphan asylum, and 
spread dismay in a thousand homes. It 
has the quality of history also, as the 
author has made careful research and 
employs no incidents which did not 
really occur ,” — San Francisco Chroti- 
icle. 

Rossetti (Dante Gabriel). The 
Blessed Damozel. With illus- 
trations by Kenyon Cox. Lar^e 
Quarto. [See Cox (Kenyon)]. 

Satterlee (Walter). Cradle 
Songs of Many N ations, by 

R. L. Herman and Walter Sat- 
terlee, 

A collection of Cradle Songs, in 
nearly every instance never before 
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— the whole making an entirely 
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26 DODD, MEAD 6- COMPANY’S PUBLICATION'S. 


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The Dramatic W orks of. 

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DODD, MEAD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 27 


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28 ^DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY' S PUBLICATIONS. 


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DODD, MEAD ^ COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 29 


Wliitelock, William. The 

Life and Times of John 
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Williams (Monier;, Professor 
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Sakoontala; or, the Lost 

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History of Painting. Ancient, 
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Running the Gauntlet. A 

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edge can be ploughed and 
cropped. Buy it, then ; it’s 
business. Third. It is a 
great educator. Buy it for 
the children, and let them 
grow up on it. Buy it, and 
then let them ask all the 
questions they want to. It 
will answer them all. Chil- 
dren grow tall that are fed 
on knowledge, and the hor- 
izon widens as we uplift. 
King among books is a 
Cyclopedia. 


This noble work is sold on the plan of easy monthly payments, at the 
following prices : 

Cloth, plain per vol., $3.00 ; per set, 15 ve^s., $45.00 

Library leather. “ “ 4.00; “ “ “ “ 60.00 

Half morocco, dark or red. “ “ 5.00; “ 75-00 


DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, Publishers, 753 & 755 Broadway, New York. 



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